The Sharing of Breath
by kjcp
Summary: When Sirius’ miserable moods suggest that everything is going wrong, something starts to go right. A “how they got together” story.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Sharing of Breath (Part 1 of 4)  
**Pairing:** Remus/Sirius  
**Rating:** R (for language)  
**Type:** Multi-chap, completed, angst, romance  
**Summary:** When Sirius' miserable moods suggest that everything is going wrong, something starts to go right. A "how they got together" story.  
**Author's Notes:** Written because sometimes it's Remus who wants to always climb into Sirius' bed. Written in 4 parts. I will post a new part every couple days until it's complete.

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**Part I**

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Sirius' hair hung down past his shoulders and often fell into his face when his neck was bent as he read. He'd gotten into the habit of reading books as of late; they were mostly novels, but sometimes books on perfecting spell techniques, something, he said, was much needed for the war. His eyes danced left to right, a circle of light in each one, a reflection from the sphere of light from his _Lumos_ spell. It was strange for him to read, but he welcomed the quiet of the books. He could think without it being about what was happening around him, what would be happening in a few months when he left school for the final time. With the words, he could be somewhere else, somewhere happy or adventurous. Normally, he sided with adventurous because the happy books tended to be Muggle romances, and he was most definitely not a _girl_.

The habit of reading had begun the summer before sixth year. He'd turned sixteen the winter before and somehow expected sixteen to feel infinitely different than fifteen. Nothing was different. _Nothing_ was different and it was depressing. "Escape" was the right word – and that's what he needed. In fourth year, when things had gotten too intense, he would find a girlfriend and snog her for a while. In fifth year, he'd do the same thing, only try to push the girls as far as they would go. But last year, the girls had begun to bore him and none of them lasted very long. Funny thing was, they usually did the breaking up, no longer tolerating his mood swings, no longer accepting coming in second to his pack of friends.

This year, seventh year, his mood swings had gotten exponentially worse. When he never put girls before the Marauders, James had. Ever since Lily finally agreed to go out with him in October, she had come first. The cord that had attached James and Sirius at the hip was severed, leaving Sirius as only a half, and leaving James as a new whole.

With Christmas holidays rapidly approaching, Sirius' moods were getting worse. Peter steered clear of him altogether, cowering whenever they were left in the dorm alone. James _tried_, he truly did, to balance out time with his girlfriend while still being a best mate to three guys, but it would never be the same as it once was. Remus seemed to be the same, but the boy seemed unaffected by almost anything, and took Sirius' moods in stride.

The problem with Christmas holiday was that Sirius was supposed to go to James' house, but James had made mutterings of going to meet Lily's parents. Remus was going to stay at school until Boxing Day and then make headway towards home until the New Year. Peter never had a choice in the matter; his mother would have never allowed him to go anywhere _but_ home for the holiday.

Or rather, that was only part of the problem with Christmas. The letter from his mother hadn't helped matters much.

As November was snowed out by December, Sirius' moods became almost unbearable. A week before the end of school and beginning of the holiday, Sirius buried himself under his blankets and closed his eyes against the darkened bed curtains. It was his ritual; he'd go to bed, curled on his left side, then he'd turn over on his back, then his right side, before finally giving up and going downstairs to the common room to read in the squishy armchair by the fire. Tonight, he decided, was going to be no different.

"Hey ... Sirius?"

Sirius heard his bed curtains part and Remus' voice as it whispered.

"I know you're not asleep."

"I might be,' said Sirius.

"You never fall asleep before two and it's only eleven."

Sirius turned on his back and looked up at Remus who was standing next to his bed, the curtains pushed away by one hand. His face was mostly in shadow, but his Muggle sweatshirt and flannel pajama bottoms were visible in the blue light cast in by the partial moon.

"How d'you know?"

"You wake me up when you leave and come back in the dormitory," answered Remus with a shrug. "I'm a light sleeper – you know that."

Sirius nodded. "Well – sorry. I won't wake you up anymore."

"Don't get crabby with me," snapped Remus. "I think I've done a pretty good job with putting up with all your brooding."

"I don't—"

"Peter is afraid to be anywhere near you and James is about to forget you altogether."

"What about you?"

"Budge over," said Remus, kneeling on Sirius' bed and closing the curtains behind him.

Without questioning it, Sirius moved over and felt the bed sag under both their weights and Remus sat facing him, his legs crossed and his back hunched as he rested his elbows on his knees.

"Why're you reading?"

"What?"

"_I_'m the one who reads. James throws that Snitch, Peter drools and follows him around, and you just ... _are_ ... y'know, you're just you. I sit and read. You're taking my thing."

"So what? You're the only one around here who can be clever?"

"No. Just wondering why."

"Because when I think about what I'm reading I don't have to think about anything else."

"Ah," said Remus. "That's true."

"Is that why you read so much?"

Remus shrugged. "They never assume it's me because my nose is always jammed in a book."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The professors. Notice how I never get in trouble, even when it's _my_ prank?"

"Yeah, I did notice that. Bloody annoying. But if your pranks weren't so brilliant I'd be more hacked off by it."

Sirius could practically _hear_ Remus grin in the darkness of his bed, even though he was mostly in shadow.

"You're the unassuming one. I still think you're having it of with Minerva and that's why you're conveniently _never_ in detention with me and James."

Remus smirked, but didn't respond. Sirius was suddenly aware of how much he needed to move. When he was lying in bed alone he never gave any thought of how much he fidgeted before, but now with someone with him, he was aware of how he wanted – needed – to just _move_.

"Er – Remus? Did you need something? Other than asking about my reading habits?"

"Well ... You know I'm a big advocate of honesty, yeah?"

Sirius nodded. When Remus didn't continue right away, Sirius realized that the boy might not be able to see his nod clearly enough in the dark. "Yeah," he said, swallowing and feeling rather anxious over what Remus was going to say.

"Don't take this personally – I'm only trying to be honest – but you've been a right foul git lately and I want to know what's wrong before you start driving me mad."

"Don't take it _personally_? Are you fucking out of your skull?"

"No, I don't think so."

"First you tell me I'm crabby and now I'm a git?"

"Are you trying to tell me that you're not a git? Because I'm very interested in hearing your arguments."

"Get off my bed."

"Shh! Don't be so loud, you'll wake the others."

"I said—"

"Are you upset about Christmas?" interrupted Remus.

"... What?"

"Christmas. About James going to Lily's instead of home?"

"I don't think—"

"Because they're going to his house on Boxing Day," Remus interrupted again. "I'm invited, but I'll probably go home for a few days and join them on New Year's Eve ..."

"Oh."

"Though, I think your mood began before James' announcement, but, really, it got a lot worse after that."

"Been spending a lot of time observing my moods?"

"Yes."

Sirius was glad that Remus probably couldn't see his surprised expression. He couldn't decide how he felt about that. Exactly how close was Remus watching him? It was an exhilarating thought, but Sirius wasn't sure he liked it.

"I thought you liked Lily?" said Remus.

"There's nothing wrong with Evans."

"You say her name like it's a disease."

"Not a disease. A mild curse, maybe."

"Grow up, Sirius."

"What?"

"I said _grow up_. One of us was bound to get a girlfriend ... Okay, probably not Peter since he's so bloody afraid of them and not me either – or you. James is the likely choice so you need to live with it and stop making yourself miserable. And stop trying to make everyone else miserable with you. It's beginning to get tiresome."

"I'm not miserable," said Sirius, rubbing his feet together under the blankets, trying to warm them up. "And hey – why not me? I could get a girlfriend."

"You could get one. Not _keep_ one."

"Why not you?"

"I'm not really interested in a girlfriend."

"You're so weird, Remus."

"I'm not so different than you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Remus sighed. "What're you doing? With your feet. You keep poking me with your toes."

"They're cold! I'm trying to warm them up."

"Are you wearing socks?"

"... No."

"You never wear socks and yet, shockingly, always wonder why your feet are cold. I wonder why that is?"

"You mock me," said Sirius. "Get off my bed if you're going to mock me."

Sirius heard Remus swallow and there seemed to be something the other boy wanted to say, and yet held his silence.

"Remus?"

"Sirius, are you ... what's really wrong?"

"Goddamn, can't you give up?"

"No ... I'm sorry. I suppose I'm worried. You're usually fairly moody in general, but lately – I'm worried."

"_Worried_? You're not my mother."

"Your mother wouldn't be worried," said Remus.

"Thanks for reminding me."

"See what I mean? You don't have to be so snarky."

"If I wanted to listen to insults—"

"I'm not insulting—"

"—then I'd've gone the fuck home. Get away from me."

"Padfoot—"

"_Don't_."

Sirius turned on his stomach and kicked his foot at Remus, but he'd already gotten up and left the bed with only a flutter of the bed curtains.

XXXXXXX

The next morning, Sirius pushed the food around on his plate, his leg bouncing as though he had a nervous tic. He'd taken a shower and thrown on his uniform before the others had awoken. He buttoned his shirt, knotted his tie, and threw his black work robes around his shoulders as he walked towards the Great Hall. Halfway there he realized he'd forgotten his sweater on his bed; the thin fabric of the robes did nothing to ward off the cold draft of the castle.

James was the first one down and he looked rather grumpy as he sat down across the table from Sirius. He pulled a piece of toast off one of the serving platters and plopped it down on his plate, grumbling to himself. Peter came in next and sat down next to James, carefully avoiding Sirius' gaze. He piled his plate full of eggs, toast, and sausages. His hand shook as he poured coffee and Sirius snorted at Peter's nervousness.

"What's with you?" he asked, looking up at James.

"Lily ... Christmas ... bloody war ..."

"It helps to understand you if you speak in complete sentences."

James looked up, his eyes dark with anger, and snapped, "Rumor has it that Voldemort's Death Munchers—"

"_Eaters_," interrupted Sirius. "Get it right."

"My family stays far away from all that nonsense so pardon me for being ignorant over what You Know Who's followers are called. Have you ever thought about how _idiotic_ 'Death Eaters' sounds?"

Sirius didn't even comment.

"So _rumor has it_ that some of the Muggle-borns are in danger if they go home. Attacks on their Muggle families and so on and so forth."

"Rotten luck, then."

"Right – exactly! So Lily's not going home and neither am I. She's in a right foul state about it. Misses her parents. I said I'd stay here with her, only she took it to mean the _entire_ holiday so now I'm not going home either."

"Ah," said Sirius. Then, after a pause, "Wait ... this doesn't mean I can't go to your house, does it? I thought I would meet you there ... on Boxing Day or something ... for the New Year."

"James had me owl my mum last night, asking for permission to stay," said Peter, not looking at Sirius as he said it. "She'll prob'ly write me back today – a Howler, most likely ..."

"I think we should all stay here. It's our last Christmas together before we have to go and fight – or even if we don't want to fight" – James glared at Peter – "then it's still our last Christmas before we have to get jobs and be responsible adults. I told Remus in the dormitory already about staying at school. He didn't seem to care either way."

"Of course not," muttered Sirius, "he doesn't care much about anything."

James must not have heard him, for he shoved toast into his mouth and rubbed his eyes as he chewed. He looked exceptionally tired this morning. Sirius' mood had actually improved. He would get to spend all holiday break with his mates. Holiday homework was usually minimal and he'd copy from Remus anyway. This could actually turn out to be an all right holiday after all. He barely noticed when Remus came into the Great Hall and sat next to him until something scratchy landed softly in his lap.

Sirius looked down; Remus had brought him his sweater from the dormitory where he left it. Sirius was rubbish with apologies, but he caught Remus' eye and held his gaze for a moment longer than necessary. When Remus nodded his head down and turned towards the platters of food before him, Sirius knew that he was forgiven for being a git last night and their fight was forgotten.

XXXXXXX

That night, Sirius couldn't sleep again. He wasn't even sure why he bothered going to bed in the first place, since he always got up and went into the common room to read. James had all but passed out the moment Quidditch practice was over; he'd barely taken off his gear and shoes before he fell flat on his bed with a snore. Peter had gone to bed at ten, as he did every night. Sirius knew when James was asleep because he snored as loud as a banshee. Peter, on the other hand, never moved or made a sound when he slept. So the silence behind Peter's curtains and the cacophony of nasal grunts from behind James' let Sirius know they were both fast asleep.

It was impossible to tell when Remus was asleep, so when the curtains to Sirius' bed were parted, he was only mildly surprised. Sirius turned on his back and watched as Remus sat down, letting the curtains shut. Sirius pulled his wand out from underneath his pillow and cast _Lumos_.

"Are you happy that we're all staying together for the holiday?"

"It'll be nice, we've never been together for Christmas. What's Lily gonna think when we all disappear for the night on the moon?"

"She knows," said Remus.

"Did James--?"

"No, I told her."

"Oh. Why?"

Remus shrugged. "Seems like she's going to be around for a while. She took it well and thanked me for trusting her. She didn't seem the type to stop being friends with me because of a furry little problem."

Sirius nodded. "Yeah. Think Peter's mum's gonna let him stay?"

Remus shrugged again. "She might. Or he might defy her and stay anyway. James has a bigger influence on him than his family does, I think. Were you going to read tonight? I've this really good book I just finished. It's got a lot of sword fighting in it and escaping from the law sort of thing. I think you'd like it."

"I prob'ly would."

"It's on the table next to my bed if you want it – you can take it. Just don't bend down the pages to mark them, please."

Sirius sniggered. "You and your books."

"I'm glad you're in a better mood. You had me worried for a while."

"It's my mum's fault," Sirius blurted.

"You can't blame them for everything."

Sirius shook his head and sat up. He freed his feet from the blankets and tried to rub the cold out of them with his hands. He kept his eyes focused on his big toes instead of looking up at Remus.

"She's not to blame for _all_ of it, but most of it. She sent me an invitation to the Black masque."

"Again? Why?"

"To tell me I could come if I stopped being a blood traitor. I've left home, but she's tried to keep her claws in me. This time, though, she said if I didn't leave my friends and come home that I was officially disowned. She – she said that they never loved me and that Regulus was the only real son they had. According to her, there was always something wrong with me, mentally, and my deficiencies were because I was so … unnatural. She wishes I was never born … I was a mistake."

"I never believed you when you said you didn't care what your family thought of you."

"I don't! She can think I'm a blood traitor all she wants, I don't really fucking care."

"Sixteen years is a long time to live in someone's house and not have them love you," said Remus. "I'm glad you left when you did and I know running away when you're only sixteen was hard. I don't know what I'd do if my parents said they didn't love me."

Sirius shrugged. "She never told me she loved me in the first place," he said, "but I kinda assumed. I knew Regulus was the favorite, but everyone's got a favorite, don't they? A favorite book or class or friend, right?"

"Right."

"What're yours?"

"My what?"

"Your favorite book or class or friend?"

Remus took in a deep breath and looked as though he was thinking very hard. "I like the old books – _The Three Musketeers_, perhaps. I like Transfiguration—"

"Only 'cause you fancy Minerva."

"I do not fancy Min – _Professor_ McGonagall."

"Who's your favorite friend?"

"You are."

Sirius looked up. "Really?"

"And I know that James is your favorite friend and it doesn't bother me, so don't worry about it."

"James has got Evans now. He's not doing a good job as best mate."

"And you think _you_ have the past couple months? With your miserable moods?"

Sirius swallowed. "Oh. I guess not. You're my second favorite."

Remus rolled his eyes. "I'm not really concerned about being anyone's favorite mate. It doesn't really matter. I know you'd never hear James or Peter say this: Sirius – you have us, the three of us, and, well, you'd have Lily too if you weren't such a git around her – but you don't need your mother and your family. None of us would ever tell you we don't love you. That's just bollocks."

"Thanks ..."

"I mean it."

"I have no idea how you could say that. I don't think I'm ... I don't understand ..."

"You don't think you're what? Worthy of your friends? Just because your mum made you feel like rubbish and didn't love you doesn't mean no one else is allowed to love you. We're your mates. Besides, you figured out I was a werewolf and you didn't care. You didn't act scared and you weren't afraid to ask questions about it and you gave Severus a bloody nose every time he even pretended to tell anyone about me. I think all that speaks volumes of your character, especially considering the family you came from. Well, the bit about giving Severus bloody noses doesn't speak for your character, but the part about standing up for me does."

Sirius held Remus' gaze, unsure of what to think.

"Don't tell James," said Sirius, "about what I said."

"Okay."

"I really do hate them," added Sirius, looking down again. "I hate them – _her_ – for what she's done to me. I'm a fucking disaster when it comes to thinking I'm worth anything sometimes. It's like I know I'm clever. I can do all the Transfiguration and Charm work by the end of class when we're taught something new and I can hex my way through any duel in Defense, but ... it's like ... everything else ... when something seems hard I think it's my fault. I was so fucking hacked off when Evans came around and agreed to go out with James. He tries – I know he does – to balance out his time and be a mate _and_ a sodding boyfriend, but I couldn't really help feeling like shit that he likes her better."

"You don't snog him," said Remus, "and I hear that's rather important when it comes to whom you like most."

Sirius tried to smile, but his mouth failed.

"D'you think you could ever hate me?" he asked, looking back up once again at Remus.

The other boy looked shocked. "No! How could I?"

"The thing with Snape last year and my miserable moods this year."

"Oh. No. I couldn't ever hate you." Remus sighed. "I really just couldn't."

"I couldn't hate you either."

"Well, thank you."

"That book you mentioned earlier? You really think I'd like it?"

Remus nodded. "Yeah. Loads of fighting, which is something I think you deem important in a book. I'll probably read it again once you're done. It was rather long and had a lot going on."

"Read it to me?"

"What?" Remus paused. "Are you kidding?"

"No. I'm too tired to read, but I can't fall asleep."

"If I start reading it again, I'll have to finish. I can't simply read a few pages and set it aside for you to finish later."

Sirius shrugged. "So what? We'll trade off, then. Get the book, Moony."

Sirius laid down on his side and pulled the blankets around him as Remus went to get the book. When he came back, he sat down again and took Sirius' wand, putting it behind his ear so that the _Lumos_ spell would shine directly over the pages.

Remus' voice had a hypnotic sound. Whenever Sirius and James were scheming, they would always ask Remus for advice or help. He was sneakier than he appeared and the fact that he was a prefect was, quite honestly, crap, because he was just as willing as the others to pull pranks and break the rules. Only, when Remus broke the rules, he did so in a way that he hardly ever got caught. Right away, James and Sirius had learned to ask Remus for help when they were planning something that would end up in many weeks detention if they were caught. Remus would take a deep breath, rub his chin, and crack his knuckles. Then, he would speak in short, incomplete sentences – spurts of ideas. Sirius would watch him, amazed at how someone so unassuming could come up with such elaborate and creative ways to break the rules.

Part of it was Remus' knack for finding brilliant ways to avoid getting caught, but part of it was his voice and mannerisms that caused Sirius to become practically hypnotized when he spoke. Tonight, Sirius thought that perhaps listening to Remus talk would put him to sleep. He _was_ tired; he was always tired, but he simply could never fall asleep.

Sirius tried to close his eyes while Remus read, but he kept watching the other boy. Remus put his thumb up near his mouth and licked it very quickly so that the pages would stick to his finger as he turned them. He kept reading and towards the end of the first chapter, he shifted and laid down on his back next to Sirius. He raised his hands and held the book directly over his head so that he could look straight up and still read. Halfway through chapter two and yawns began to break up the sentences.

Sirius never heard Remus finish the second chapter. He had fallen, thankfully, asleep.

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**End Part I**

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	2. Chapter 2

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**Part II**

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"Whose bloody alarm is that?" yelled James. "It's Saturday. Turn it _off_!"

Sirius listened to James curse, but refused to open his eyes. He was on his stomach, his cheek smooshed into his pillow. He knew if he lifted his head, his skin would be tattooed with an indentation from the seam of the pillowcase. As James' grumbling continued, Sirius felt blindly through his bed curtains for his watch, which he had taken off before bed and placed on his bedside table. His fingers touched the cold metal circling the face of it and he grasped it and brought it back inside the curtains. Cracking an eye open, Sirius read the time. 7:16 AM.

"James," Sirius mumbled, "_shut up_."

Next came a crashing and breaking noise, as though something had been flung against a wall with a lot of force. The noise was loud and Sirius jumped, rather annoyed that James insisted on making such a bloody ruckus at so early an hour.

"Whuzzat?" a voice grumbled from the other side of Sirius.

Sirius jumped in surprise again and sat up. Remus was stirring next to him, no doubt waking up from all James' noise, especially since he was normally such a light sleeper. The book he had been reading the night before was opened, but covering half of his face. The werewolf stretched and pushed the book away, blinking awake.

"Morning, Sirius – what're you doing in my bed?"

"'S'not your bed," yawned Sirius, keeping his voice low. "'S'mine."

Remus sat up and looked around. "Oh ... what?" The expression on his face was one of confusion and he scratched his head, as though he might itch sense into the morning.

"You fell asleep when you were reading," whispered Sirius. "James broke your alarm clock."

"Why?"

"You still had it set and you weren't there to turn it off."

"Ah," said Remus, "I thought I dreamt about it going off. Normally I'd wake up if a piece of parchment hit the floor. Moon is rather close, though, so that must be it." He yawned and stretched again. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

"Did he go back to sleep?" asked Remus. "James, I mean?"

Sirius listened for the sounds of James' snoring, but heard nothing except silence. He shook his head. "No, not yet."

"Well, I best suck it up and sneak back to my own bed. I could use a couple more hours sleep."

"What'll you tell James if he sees you?"

Remus gave Sirius a quizzical look. "I figured on the truth."

"No, you can't do that. He'll think it's queer that I asked you to read to me."

Remus' puzzled look deepened. "James won't care. I'm sure he does all kinds of things with Lily that you might think is strange."

"Exactly!" snapped Sirius. "With _Evans_. You're not my Evans, Moony. You're my mate."

"Oh. _Ohh_." Remus sniggered. "Don't be daft, Sirius. If it bothers you that much, read to yourself tonight instead."

"But now I'm interested in _that_ book," said Sirius, motioning towards the book that had fallen on his pillow when Remus pushed it off his face.

Remus sighed. "I never know what you want …"

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. It's Saturday, though, and I expect James shall have something planned that'll have us coming back to the dormitory at sunrise."

"Or else he's going to try to suck Evans' face off some more."

Remus shrugged. "Perhaps. But be optimistic. You might be too tired tonight to read anyhow. You could always work on Slughorn's essay, since you're still in NEWT Potions. _Or_, and this really is a rather brilliant idea, you could do your History of Magic homework and _I_ could copy it off _you_ this time."

"You know that's a stupid idea," said Sirius. "I get confused between the goblin names and the giant names. You'd probably end up writing down about the Giant War of 1412 led by Hrothgar and the Goblin Rebellion of 1549 led by Filliban. Which I'm sure is entirely wrong ... and I bet you're going to correct me now, aren't you?"

"Everyone knows Filliban lived in the eighteenth century and not the sixteenth and he led the _centaurs_ against the Ministry of Magic in Germany."

Sirius shook his head in amazement. The way Remus' brain expanded and held in every bit of information _ever_ was truly astounding.

"And Hrothgar wasn't a giant."

"Who was he? A goblin? A troll? A Squib? For god's sake, don't hold out on me. Merlin knows that knowing who Hrothgar is is probably of utmost importance."

"Mockery does not suit you, Sirius," said Remus. "No, a Muggle in Muggle literature. You must've heard me talk about him ... though I don't know why I would have, not to you anyway. I had a conversation with Lily about it once, however ... Hrothgar and Grendel and – never mind, I'll simply put you to sleep if I keep talking. Though that's another story you might like. It has dragons and monsters."

"It's not even seven-thirty in the morning yet, so I don't care," said Sirius. "'S'too early to care." His ears perked up; James was beginning to snore again. "Why don't you just shut up so we can go back to sleep? Too bloody early to be awake on a Saturday."

Sirius watched Remus for a reaction. The boy stiffened and looked around at the bed and swallowed visibly, his Adam's apple bobbing as he did so.

"Was that a snore? I think James's asleep again."

Sirius nodded and watched as Remus slipped between his bed curtains and disappeared out of sight. It was ridiculous to think that he had wanted Remus to stay and go back to sleep with him. When they woke up they were barely touching. Nothing had happened the night before. In the end, Sirius chalked it up to needing a best mate who didn't have a girlfriend; a best mate who was always around. That was why he wanted Remus to stay. There was no other reason.

XXXXXXX

The four of them didn't make it to breakfast until nearly ten o'clock. Almost everything had been eaten already. All the jam was gone so Sirius had to make a meal out of butter and toast instead. Remus sat beside him and it only just then occurred to Sirius that this wasn't normal for them except for the past couple of weeks. Usually, Remus sat across from Sirius, next to Peter.

As Remus reached for the butter, his elbow knocked into Sirius' arm. He didn't apologize or even act as though it had happened. Sirius chewed slower, concentrating more on what Remus was doing beside him. Chewing and watching his best mate at the same time was a difficult feat and once Remus had returned the butter to its place on the table, Sirius began to chew at a normal pace again.

After breakfast they all walked back to the common room. Sirius took a small step sideways so he could bump into Remus. When he didn't get a reaction, Sirius narrowed his eyes, even more confused than before. One would think that purposefully accidental touching would elicit _some_ sort of response. Then Sirius wondered if Remus' elbow knocking into him at breakfast was also an on-purpose accident or not.

Peter wanted to play Exploding Snap. Sirius and Remus didn't want to play, but agreed to watch as Peter played with a couple of sixth-years. James played a game of cards with Lily near them; every few minutes he'd swear about Muggles having daft rules for their rubbish card games. Lily only smiled and continued to win every hand.

Sirius was glad when it was time for lunch; he could only watch Exploding Snap for so many hours, even though it was nice to watch the cards explode in Peter's face. When they sat the Gryffindor table, Sirius felt Remus' hip next to his. Was Remus sitting closer to him … or was he sitting closer to Remus? Who had initially sat down? Or had they sat at the exact same time? And was it a battle of wills to see who would move over to give the other room first?

What if Remus' lack of response was because he had no idea anything was going on? What if everything was in Sirius' head?

They ate with relative normalcy and after lunch Remus headed to the library to work on an essay and James had a Saturday afternoon Quidditch practice. With nothing else to do, Sirius decided to go down to the pitch to watch. He went back to Gryffindor Tower to collect his coat. Remus was gathering up his books and a small stack of parchment when Sirius entered.

"What're you off to study?" asked Sirius.

"Ancient Runes. Lily's going to study for Astronomy and asked if I wanted to share a table."

"Better watch out or James'll get jealous."

Remus smiled and shook his head. "No, I rather doubt that. He'll be at Quidditch anyway. Is that where you're going?"

"Yeah."

"You should add socks to that pile in your hands."

Sirius looked down. He had his Muggle-style coat, scar, gloves, and a hat that covered his ears gripped in his hands.

"How'd you know I wasn't wearing socks?"

"You never do. But if you want your feet to freeze … I need to get to the library. I want to have this finished before tonight. James said he wanted to go to Hosgmeade."

"Yeah, he needs to replenish his stash of sweets."

"I was under the impression he wanted to get a drink at the Hog's Head."

"Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"I don't really want to be around when Lily finds out."

"She won't."

"Doesn't she always?"

Sirius paused. "... Yeah."

"I need to get to the library. I'll see you."

Sirius put on his coat and buttoned it up. He looked at the hat in his hands and tossed it on his bed. His ears would just have to get cold; the hat would severely mess up his long hair.

XXXXXXX

Lily announced she was spending the evening with her girl friends up in the sixth-year girls' dormitory, which was perfect because now James and Sirius could sneak to Hogsmeade without Lily trying to stop them. James invited Peter to go with them and they made their way to Honeydukes. James was disappointed that neither Peter nor Sirius was interested in drinking at the Hog's Head so they just looked around the sweet shop for the goodies they wanted to take back to Gryffindor. Sirius left a small mountain of wizard coins next to the register as they nicked armfuls of sweets.

Back in the dormitory, Remus held out his hand as they all entered, his eyes slowly scanning his book from left to right.

Sirius dumped his sweets on his bed and rummaged through them, looking for Honeydukes Special Anniversary Dark that he always brought back for Remus whenever he opted not to go to Hogsmeade with them. He placed the large chocolate bar in Remus' outstretched hand, accidentally (and not purposefully accidental, either) touching his skin. Remus' fingers curled around the chocolate and he said, "Thanks."

"Mmm," mumbled Sirius. "Is that the book we were reading last night?"

"No."

"What is it?"

Remus glanced over the top of his book at Sirius, who was standing a meter or so away, fingers slowly opening a Chocolate Frog.

"Muggle Studies."

"Ah."

Remus ran his tongue across his teeth as he went back to reading. "If you're going to watch me read, you could pull up a chair."

Sirius' frog jumped out of his hand and splattered on the floor. "Fuck!" he cried.

"It's just a frog," said James from across the room, pulling his sweatshirt over his head and tossing it in the corner. "You've been acting really bizarre all day. Stop it."

"I don't think Sirius' peculiarities have an off-switch, James," said Remus jokingly.

"Sod off," snapped Sirius. "The both of you." He snatched the book Remus read aloud the night before off the bedside table and stomped down to the common room.

It was barely nine o'clock, so the common room was filled with students, mostly the lower-years. Several fourth-year boys were gathered in a corner, listening to one of their classmates tell a story. By the way they all had fascinated looks on their faces, Sirius surmised that the boy in the center had probably just coped his first feel and the other boys were listening to the tale. It had been like that when he was a fourth-year; Peter, James, and Remus all sat on his bed and listened to him talk about the way Margaret Temple's breasts felt like under his hands.

_ "You think touching them over the uniform shirts is nice? Try just skin. It's bloody amazing!" _he'd said. James had groaned in envy, Peter had looked in complete awe, and Remus had merely raised his eyebrows and shrugged, as if to say, _ "Well, what else did you really expect?" _ Remus often gave him much the same look nowadays.

Sirius sat down on the sofa in front of the fireplace. A small boy sat on the other end, scratching away on a piece of parchment with a silver quill. There was far too much noise in the common room to read and since it was Saturday, chances of the room being vacated early were slim. Still, Sirius opened the book and turned the pages with such force, he was surprised he hadn't ripped them away from the spine. He had no idea where Remus had left off the night before.

"Hey, Padfoot?"

Sirius looked up. Remus stood before him, hand held out.

"I already gave you your stupid chocolate."

"I want the book."

Out of the corner of his eye, Sirius saw the small boy looking at them from the end of the sofa.

"What're you looking at?"

The boy shook his head. "Nothing."

"So stop staring at me!"

"Be nice, Sirius," said Remus. To the boy he said, "Sorry, Sirius forgot to take his Sanity Draught this morning so he's been a bit crazy all day."

"Right," said the boy. "I'll just go ... to bed ..." He rolled his parchment and took off towards the boys' dormitory stairs.

"You scared him," said Remus, sitting down on the middle cushion, but still a very safe distance away from Sirius.

"Who cares? You can't have your book. I'm reading it. You already know what happens."

"I told you last night I can't stop reading in the middle of a book. I've started it, therefore I need to finish it."

Sirius frowned. "Sometimes you act like you got that – what was it we learned about in Muggle Studies? – obsessive compulsive thing."

"I'm not obsessive compulsive. Perhaps about my books and schoolwork, but those things are important. Just give me the book and I'll finish it again in a few days and I'll give it back to you. Or I can just read it out loud again, but it's rather noisy in here so it'd have to wait for later."

Sirius' frown deepened.

"Though, I think it best that we read down here. I don't want to wake up in your – like this morning."

"Right."

"Are you okay? James was right. You've been acting strange all day."

"I'm fine ... I'm going to shower ... unless James is hogging all the hot water?"

Remus shook his head. "No, he left. Didn't you see the portrait hole opening on its own? He went to nick some apple tart from the kitchens. I guess the sweets you got from Honeydukes isn't sustaining his need to eat more crap."

Sirius almost laughed. It wasn't often Remus used words like "crap" and when he did, it was usually rather funny, but Sirius wasn't in the mood for laughter tonight.

"Well, I'm going to shower, then. Maybe when I'm done the common room will be empty and all these snot-nosed brats will be in bed."

"You were a snot-nosed brat once."

"And I hate myself every day for it."

Sirius turned and dashed up the stairs to go take a shower, even though he didn't feel very dirty. At least, not physically.

XXXXXXX

The last week of classes before any break were always a bit of a joke. No one paid much attention and even the professors seemed to be anxious to leave and get home to their families for Christmas. Not all the professors left. McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Slughorn always stayed behind. Kettleburn had fifteen grandchildren that he went to visit every year and the Astronomy professor, Peterson, spent her holidays in Italy, having a mad love affair with an Italian man several years her junior. Everyone knew about the affair, especially since on the weekends she was most often nowhere to be found. Astronomy was a particular bore that last week and on the last day, Professor Peterson had a sign up on the classroom door: CANCELED.

The whole idea of classes being canceled was brilliant and just meant that the holiday started two hours sooner. Sirius pulled the knot of his tie down and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt. He untucked his shirttail and stretched, his fingers reaching towards the ceiling.

"Ah, no classes for three and a half weeks. The idea of an extended Christmas holiday is _brilliant_."

"I don't know," said Peter as they walked back towards their common room. "I don't think my mum's going to send me any presents. She's rather hacked off that I insisted on staying here."

"Didn't you explain to her?" asked James. "This is _important_. Our last Christmas together!"

"You act as though we're never going to see one another once we leave school," said Remus. "That can't possibly be true. True, I'll be living with my parents again, but I've got my Apparition license – and so do you two." He nodded towards James and Sirius.

"It was only an earlobe," whimpered Peter. "I was so close to getting it this last time, too. If only my stupid earlobe had stayed in tact."

Sirius snorted. "Just be glad it was your earlobe and not something more vital." He slung his arm around Remus' shoulder. "And you're right. We're going to see loads of each other. I'm going to pop in every day and eat some of your mum's apple tart. James likes the tart from the kitchens, but nothing beats out Moony's mum's pies. I could _drool_ over Moony's mum's pies."

"The apple tarts here really hits the spot, if you know what I mean. And I'll be busy, though," said James, "with Auror training. It starts next September and I hear it's brutal."

"I'll be busy not working," said Sirius, "thanks to my dear uncle who left me enough Galleons to never work again. What're you gon' do, Moony?"

"Get a job, I suppose."

"Doing what?"

He shrugged and Sirius had to drop his arm from his shoulder as Remus jumped over the vanishing step on the staircase that led up to the tower. "Probably in a Muggle shop somewhere. There's no way they can find out about me."

"They wouldn't believe it anyway," said James. "My dad said most Muggles are right thick about magic. They'd prefer to think they're going mad than admit that something magical is going on."

"Like the vanishing rosebushes," laughed Sirius.

"That wasn't amusing," said Remus, though his tone suggested he wasn't entire serious. "Your poor neighbors, James. Running off to buy more and more rosebushes every day because Sirius kept shrinking them. Bless them, the unfortunate Muggles, having you lot live in the house next door."

"They thought _we_ were the mad ones," said James. "What – with all the owls always sitting on our roof. My dad had a party once and the RSVP messages came back – a hundred in an hour."

"_Magique baguette_," said Peter, and the portrait swung open.

They climbed through and into the deserted common room; all the other students must still be in lessons. Sirius dropped his satchel full of books and parchment and plopped himself down on the sofa. Remus sat down next to him, on the middle cushion and stretched both his arms, resting them on the back of the sofa. If Sirius leaned his head back, his hair would brush against Remus' forearm.

"I need to go to Hogsmeade again," said James, sprawling out on the floor. "I still haven't got Lily a Christmas present."

"You should probably do that," said Sirius. "I think it's important to buy one's girlfriend something for Christmas. A suggestion, if I may? Nothing from Zonko's."

"Shut up," said James. "I'm not an idiot."

"Hmmm," said Sirius. "I wouldn't have guessed." He shifted, crossing his leg in such a way that his knee just barely hovered over Remus' thigh. If he moved his leg ever so slightly, he would be touching him.

"Why don't you come with me, Sirius?"

"Er ... all right. Is this going to be a Marauder expedition?"

"No," said James rather quickly. "I mean – I've already got your present, but not Peter's or Remus' ..."

Sirius narrowed his eyes at James, but consented to going to Hogsmeade anyway.

"Lily said she needed new stationery," commented Remus. "She told me while we were studying last weekend – why are you giving me that look?"

"You were studying with my girlfriend?" demanded James.

"Oh, come off it. She's not interested in me. We shared a table at the library. I hear girls think it's nice sometimes to be around a boy who doesn't want their tongues in their mouths."

"You could have told me."

"That we studied? Jealousy looks rotten on you, James. Stop it."

James frowned.

"He's right," said Peter. "It's not as though Lily's gonna be interested in _Remus_."

"Why not?" asked Sirius, immediately realizing how angry _he_ sounded.

"Er ... because he's Remus. That's all. No offense, Moony, but it's not like you got a girl – or ever had one."

Remus flinched. "That doesn't mean anything."

"Doesn't it?" said Peter. "I thought ... never mind."

"I'm not a eunuch, you know. If I'm going to date, it'll be someone who knows about my condition already. It's not a secret that can come out at Hogwarts; I could get expelled. Not everyone is as opened minded as Lily – and before you say anything, James, I told Lily already about it and she took it very well. That's all I meant."

Sirius listened to Remus and felt awful. Here he was, able to get any girl he wanted, and Remus couldn't because of a bit of lycanthropy. It didn't seem fair. Sirius lowered his knee onto Remus' thigh.

James nodded. "I know, Lily told me. I knew she wouldn't care."

"Not all girls are like that," said Remus. "It doesn't matter, but, Peter, _really_, don't talk unless you know what you're saying."

Peter blushed and nodded. "Sorry."

"Let's get to Hogsmeade now so we can get back in time for dinner," said James.

"Sure," said Sirius. He put both feet on the floor and right before he stood up, he was sure he felt fingers touch the back of his neck.

XXXXXXX

They snuck through Honeydukes and made their way out onto the streets of Hogsmeade. There was day-old snow on the ground that their feet sunk into as they walked. The sky was clear, although already getting a bit dark. Branches brushed together as the wind pushed them and Sirius wished that, for once, he'd listened to Remus about putting on socks.

"Goddamn, it's cold out—"

"What's going on with you?" asked James, stopping in the middle of the street.

"What d'you mean?" Sirius slowed his walk until he stopped, a few feet away from James. He shivered as the wind picked up speed and combed through his hair.

"_You_. You're being – well, you're being _weird_."

"Thanks for clearing things up," snapped Sirius. "If this is about my rotten moods, Remus already tore me a new one about them."

"That's just it!" cried James. "_Remus_."

"You're making even less sense now. Let's just get to Scrivenshaft's – there's probably heat in there."

James didn't move. "Sirius."

"James."

"_Sirius_."

"_James_."

James threw his hands up in exasperation. "I don't know how I'm s'posed to say this!"

"Just _say it_! You're supposed to be able to say anything to me, right? So fucking out with it or else I'm going back to school."

"What's going on with you and Remus?"

"Me and Remus?"

"No," said James. "_You_ with Remus, I mean. Remus seems to be acting rather normal. You on the other hand. Are not."

Sirius felt the color drain from his face. He wasn't sure exactly what was going on with him, but he hoped it wasn't noticeable. So if James – whose attention span was worse than his – picked up on it, then what if Remus ...? Sirius felt nauseated at the thought.

"I dunno what you mean."

James groaned. "Yes you do! How can you not know? You look at him all the time. You stand really, really close when you talk. I've seen you do the same thing to girls before. But Remus isn't. I mean, a girl – Remus isn't a girl."

"Your observations are astonishing."

"Padfoot, you are my best mate."

"Thanks."

"No, shut up and don't talk for a minute."

Sirius held up his hands in defeat and sniffled; the cold was making his nose runny.

"You're my best mate, but Remus is Remus. So if you're trying to screw with him, I _will_ punch you right in the nose. If you're not screwing with him, then just tell me what's going on."

"Why would I screw with Remus?"

"Because he's – you know."

"Because he's 'you know'? I don't know what the bloody fuck 'you know' means. I'm cold and I'm getting tired so just tell me in plain English so we can move on."

"Because he's never had a girlfriend. ARG!" James rubbed his hands over his face. "Look, just because Remus has never had a girlfriend doesn't mean he's gay."

"Wha—? I know that. I _know_. What are you trying to say?"

"The way you're acting around Remus. Is it because you're trying to figure out if he's gay? Because you could simply ask."

"No," said Sirius, shaking his head. "I'm not trying to figure out if he's gay."

"Are you trying to figure out if _you're_ gay?"

"NO!" Sirius practically yelled. "I know I'm not. I fancy girls."

"Then why d'you keep touching Moony? You used to always sit with me during lessons, but now – and then on the couch in the common room, when you overlapped your leg with his – Sirius. I'm not thick about everything. If it was anyone else, I wouldn't notice, but you're my best mate and you're acting different."

"I don't know what to tell you. Remus and me are just better mates than we used to be. You spend half your time with Evans now and so I had to find someone to spend more of my time with. And we all know I can hardly stand Peter."

James didn't look entirely convinced. "If you were ... y'know ... if you decided you didn't like girls ... or didn't only like girls ... I wouldn't tell anyone. I wouldn't even tell Lily, if you didn't want me to."

"Shut up, James. Please, just shut up. This conversation is getting tired and I my nose is going to get frostbite if we don't go someplace where there's _heat_."

James nodded. "All right. Let's go to Scrivenshaft's."

The conversation ended there, though Sirius had a feeling it was really far from over.

XXXXXXX

The next week was the full moon. The days leading up to it, Sirius was extra careful to keep his distance from Remus. As usual, the other boy didn't seem to notice, which was beginning to drive Sirius mad. He knew he didn't fancy boys, but maybe he fancied Remus, just a bit? It was confusing and bothersome. It had crept up on him. Ever since he was little, he liked girls. They were pretty and had long hair and were smaller. He never looked at boys – he never looked at men. He only looked at Remus.

The whole thing was rather ridiculous. He only hoped that when Remus turned into the werewolf tomorrow night that everything was normal. Sometimes if Remus was angry, the wolf appeared angry, or if Remus was in a particularly good mood, the wolf was less aggressive, more playful. Sirius needed a normal night as Padfoot.

"Hey, Sirius?"

Sirius opened his eyes. Remus stood next to his bed, the curtains parted slightly. He had on his pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, but his jaw was tense, as though he was keeping his teeth from chattering.

"James and Peter are asleep," he said, and as if on cue, James let out a giant roar of a snore.

"I thought you would be too – night before the moon and all."

Remus shrugged. "I can't sleep. Are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Remus shrugged again. "You haven't talked to me since you and James went to Hogsmeade."

"I asked you to pass the pumpkin juice at breakfast."

"Oh."

Sirius moved all the way over, allowing more room on his bed. He reached under his pillow and grasped his wand, casting a _Lumos_ charm. Remus sat down, his legs crossed, and Sirius saw two pairs of wool socks on his feet.

"You brought the book," whispered Sirius, looking at the book in Remus' hand.

"Yeah ... well, we haven't read it since that second time in the common room."

"I know. I was wondering what was going to happen next. Are you going to read?"

Remus held the book out to Sirius. "I'm too tired. You do it."

Sirius took the book and stared at it. "I don't ..."

"Please?"

Well, how could Sirius refuse a "please?" He sat up and flipped through the pages until he found where they had left off. Glancing up at Remus, he noticed the other boy was trying not to shiver. "Take a blanket, it's bloody cold." When Remus began to shake his head, Sirius opened up the blankets next to him and cleared his throat to read.

The words came out of his mouth as he read them, but he was hardly paying attention. He listened to the way the sheets rustled as Remus laid down in his bed, covering up with the blankets. Sirius continued to read until he reached the end of the chapter.

"D'you want me to keep going?"

"Mmm. You don't have to," mumbled Remus. "I'll go back to my bed."

Sirius didn't say anything and Remus didn't move.

"I hate transformations."

"I know."

Remus opened his eyes and looked up at Sirius for a brief moment before closing them again. "I'm scared of them."

"Why?"

"Of what they do to me. How I haven't any control over anything. I know you lot wouldn't let anything bad happen and that you'll watch out for me, but I'm terrified every time."

"I know I didn't help last year ... with Snivellus ..."

"Don't. I don't want to talk about it. Did you know Madam Pomfrey isn't here? Her daughter had a baby last week so she went to see them for the holiday."

"It's all right. I'm sure Dumbledore—"

"Dumbledore has all the potions and salves set out. Everything shall be all right. It usually is." Remus sighed. "I dunno why I'm so worried this time."

"It's all right." Sirius had an impulse to brush the fringe away from Remus' forehead. He reached out a shaky hand and did just that. Remus didn't react and Sirius kept running his fingers through his hair. Then, a hand crept across his stomach; Remus was hugging Sirius around his middle. _Finally_, a reaction.

Sirius opened his bed curtains just enough to slip the book out and onto his bedside table. He scooted down in his bed until he was lying right next to Remus. With a hushed whisper of, "_Nox!_" Sirius put his wand back under his pillow. He had no idea where to put his hands. His fingers hesitated in the air, above Remus' body.

"Here," mumbled Remus. He took one of Sirius' hands and placed it around him, pressing Sirius' fingers into his back.

Sirius bit back a hysterical laugh and hugged Remus closer to him. The other boy's head was very close to his and it wouldn't take much movement to kiss his forehead. That might be a bit much, though. What if this was only a friendly hug? What if Remus was only here because he was scared about tomorrow's full moon? What if the reactions he was giving Sirius didn't mean anything?

A sigh escaped Sirius' lips, his breath against Remus' forehead. He the other boy shift next to him and one of Remus' legs moved in between his knees. This certainly wasn't a friendly hug, was it? God, Sirius hoped not. He moved his hand up Remus' back and across his neck. Sirius closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep with his fingers tangled in soft, sandy-brown stands of hair.

XXXXXXX

**End Part II**

XXXXXXX 


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Fits into "Chasing Snowflakes" story.

XXXXXXX

**Part III**

XXXXXXX

The full moon went smoothly. Sirius didn't go to the hospital wing the next day, but spent his time playing chess with Peter and cards with James and Lily instead. He lost every game he played. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the cards or chess pieces before him, his mind kept slipping back to sleeping with Remus – or sharing a bed with him at any rate.

When he woke up that next morning, Remus had already gotten up and dressed. He acted as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened during the night and wasn't alone with him all day. Then, the full moon came and went and Remus spent the day sleeping.

After dinner, Sirius tried to work on some of his holiday homework assignments, but it was no use. His brain simply refused to function properly. As he sat on the floor near the fire, he let the warmth of the flames heat up his back to an almost-painful temperature. Lily excused herself to shower and James flipped through a stack of Charms notes, muttering to himself about Flitwick's essay.

"Mum sent me another invitation this year," said Sirius. He hadn't _planned_ on saying it, but the silence needed to be broken and he had no idea what else to say.

James looked down from his seat on the sofa at Sirius. "Really? She's a stupid bitch."

"Yeah."

"Same invitation as always?"

"A bit different, but basically ... yeah. I dunno why she thinks I'd be interested in her crap traditions. The whole house is completely mad. She's going to drink herself to death one of these days, I'm sure."

"That'd be too bad," muttered James. "What're you gonna do about a flat? You said you might look for one over Christmas?"

Sirius shrugged. In truth, he hadn't thought about letting a flat in several weeks. "My uncle left me enough to just get a house. I might like that better – no noisy neighbors or anything. It'll be nice to have my own room."

Peter, who was seated in one of the squishy armchairs, cleared his throat. "My cousin Arnie just broke up with his girlfriend so he needs someone to split the cost of his flat so I'm gonna move in the extra bedroom in June."

"What's he doing 'til then?" asked Sirius.

"Oh, his brother's staying there until he gets married sometime near the end of spring."

"Lucky break, there, Pete," said Sirius.

Peter beamed. "I know! It's right in the middle of Diagon Alley too."

"Wizard flats are right pricey," said James. "Auror training doesn't pay anything so I'm staying at home."

Sirius stomach growled. "I think I'm gonna go to the kitchens. Want anything?"

"Apple tart."

"I thought you just nicked some?"

"Me too," answered James with a shrug, "but I can't find it."

Sirius grimaced, thinking of what their room would smell like once James' apple tart started to rot. "All right, I'll ask the elves if there's some more."

"You should bring some of that chocolate stuff that was served after dinner," said Peter. "For Moony, I mean."

Sirius nodded and snuck out the portrait hole and made his way towards the kitchens.

By the time he got back, Lily was once again sitting on the sofa next to James. The ends of her hair looked damp and Sirius offered her a chocolate biscuit. They said Remus had come back from the hospital wing, but had gone upstairs to go back to bed. Feeling suddenly disgruntled, Sirius excused himself, feigning a headache, and walked up the stairs to the dormitory.

Sure enough, Remus was asleep. His bed curtains weren't even closed, so Sirius shut them and placed the chocolate pudding from the kitchens on Remus' bedside table. There was a pile of books under the small table and Sirius rummaged through them to find something to read. He pulled out a secondhand copy of something that looked decidedly Muggle and took it. Once he had changed into his pajamas, he climbed into bed and shut his curtains, casting _Lumos_ to read by.

He heard Peter come up some time later, but the dormitory remained almost silent until Sirius fell asleep around three in the morning; James never came up to bed.

XXXXXXX

Christmas came that next week and Sirius gave his friends the usual presents of expensive sweets from Honeydukes. James normally got him a subscription to _Witches of Quidditch_ (which had hardly anything to do with Quidditch and everything to do with scantily-clad witches) magazine, but this year he received _Quidditch Digest_ instead with a note scratched out in James' messy handwriting that read, _Didn't know if the other subscription was necessary anymore_. Sirius crumpled up the note and Vanished it, but _Quidditch Digest_ did have rather interesting and in-depth articles about the players and various world teams, so the present wasn't a _complete_ loss. Peter gave Sirius a pound of chocolate with walnuts baked in it. Remus had gotten him a record of a band they'd read about in chapter forty-eight ("Muggle Music: Another Great Mystery") during their Muggle Studies class. The record was actually a brilliant gift, especially since his record player was one of the things Sirius had taken with him when he ran away from home.

The differences in Sirius' friendship with Remus continued to mount. Remus had only read the book to him once and insisted on doing it in the common room. Otherwise, Remus spent most of his time in the dormitory working on homework while Sirius, James, and Peter did their best to be loud and obnoxious while playing every wizard game they could think of.

The confusion over what was happening with Remus hadn't ebbed. Sirius was still just as conflicted as ever and he wanted Remus next to him in bed, even if it was just to talk or sleep. It didn't really matter what they did, as long as Remus was simply _there_. Two nights ago, Sirius had given up and gone to Remus' bed and climbed in. They lay there and fell asleep, not talking and not touching, but when Sirius woke up the next morning, he'd accidentally taken all the covers and Remus was next to him without any blankets on. Last night Sirius was too nervous to go back to Remus' bed, in case he was told to go away.

There was still snow on the ground even though it hadn't fallen in several days. Sirius couldn't sit still. His fingers itched; his body was twitching. He had to do something or else he was going to go mad. James wanted to spend his time in the dormitory; Remus did his homework; Peter followed along with whatever James wanted to do. And none of them wanted to go to Hogsmeade or go into that weird room full of books and shiny things that Sirius had found a few days ago when he took the long way back to the tower after lunch.

Since no one would go with Sirius to find that wonderful Room of Distraction, he decided to find something to amuse himself on his own.

"Hey, can I copy that?" asked Sirius, leaning over Remus as he sat doing his lessons at his desk.

Remus straightened up in his chair and shook his head. "No. Do your own homework."

"But you've already done yours."

"Right," said Remus. "_Mine_ is done. Yours is not."

James got up from his game of cards with Peter and sat backwards in his desk chair, looking at Sirius.

"He's never going to let you copy," he said. "You should just give it up."

"He'll let me," said Sirius, refusing to look at his best mate. He reached down and snatched Remus' essay.

"Give that back!" cried Remus, standing up and whirling around.

"What're you gonna do? Hex me?"

Remus narrowed his eyes and looked as though he was deciding exactly which hex would be best. Sirius suddenly felt a bit nervous; Remus was very good at hexes, curses, and how to cast them and then defend himself from them if they were cast in return.

But Sirius got a shock when Remus pounced and knocked him over.

"_Nuaagh!_" Sirius yelped as his backside collided with the hard floor. "Bloody hell, Moony!"

"Give me back my homework!"

Sirius looked up. Remus had pinned him and was kneeling on his chest. This was most uncomfortable and Remus' knees were digging into his ribs. What to do – what to do ... Sirius counted silently, _one ... two ... three ... _and pushed against Remus, turning the tables and wrestling him to the floor.

James laughed and shook his head in disbelief. Sirius let go of Remus just long enough to flip two fingers up at James.

The dormitory door opened slowly and Sirius turned his head and watched as Lily entered their room.

"Ah! Evans!" laughed Sirius. "Was wondering when you'd – _ahhh_!"

Remus had pushed against Sirius in his moment of distraction and he was once again on his back. He grumbled in frustration as Remus asked him for his homework back. Silly boy.

"Homework during the holidays? I thought you would've waited until last minute," commented Lily.

"Who, Remus? Please," said James.

"Remus always gets it done early," said Peter, "so we can copy."

"You can _not_ copy," snapped Remus. "Give me my homework, Black."

"Oh, we're on to surnames, are we? Well, then, Messer Lupin – _ouch_! You _bit_ me!"

"Just be glad it's not the full moon."

Sirius reached up and touched his shoulder where Remus had sunk his teeth into him, through his shirt. Un-fucking-believable. Sirius had no idea Remus could be so _aggressive_ away from the full moon. After another moment, Remus relented and moved off Sirius, standing up and fixing his rumpled hair. He trailed a finger across a scar on his nose and Sirius watched him from where he sat on the floor.

"I'm still surprised you all managed to talk your parents into staying here for the holiday," said Lily, "especially you, Remus."

"Well, full moon and all."

"Full moon was last week."

"Right, well ..." Remus looked at Sirius, who was standing back up. Sirius' heart beat a little faster. He knew that Remus had planned on going home for a few days, but ended up agreeing to stay at school. There was a part of Sirius who figured it was because he was there and being around his friends on Christmas would improve his mood immensely. The moods weren't back to normal; he was still snappish and broody, but he wasn't as miserable as before. True, part of it could be attributed to his friends, but mostly it was just Remus.

"You're not planning some prank, are you? I've seen Severus' underpants enough times already."

Sirius snorted.

"No prank?"

Sirius shook his head. He eyed Remus' bed, which was across from James', and remembered how nice and warm it was during that one time he'd slept there.

Lily narrowed her eyes. "No prank. Then I don't understand." She looked highly skeptical, but Sirius could hardly blame her. They were the _Marauders_ and infamous for their jokes, pranks, and sneaking about after curfew.

"Blame James," said Sirius, flopping himself backwards on Remus' bed. It felt exactly like his own bed, only it smelled like Remus.

"Budge over," grumbled Remus. "You always hog all the blankets when you get in my bed and it's _cold_."

"Always" was a bit of a stretch, as he'd only slept there once, but Sirius' eyes still immediately sought James'. The conversation they had on their walk to Hogsmeade came flying from the back of his mind and he could remember it as though it was yesterday.

_ "The way you're acting around Remus. Is it because you're trying to figure out if he's gay? Because you could simply ask."_

"No, I'm not trying to figure out if he's gay."

"Are you trying to figure out if you're _gay?"_

"NO! I know I'm not. I fancy girls." 

James was giving him a look – a look that said _yeah, right_ to his previous protests about fancying a boy. Nevertheless, it was true: Sirius fancied girls. At least, he used to fancy them and if it wasn't for Remus, he would fancy them still.

"James thought we should stay here for the holiday," said Peter, tossing one of James' Quidditch magazines aside. He sat on his own bed, his feet dangling off the side. "He can't get enough of us. It's rather pathetic."

The gaze James held with Sirius was ripped away then, and the conversation turned the war.

"No," said James, an annoyed tone to his voice despite the playful tone of Peter's. "It's our last Christmas. When we leave Hogwarts we'll just have to go fight."

"The war," mumbled Sirius. God, this conversation was tired. The war, war, bloody fucking war; it was all they ever talked about sometimes. He knew it was important, but sometimes he didn't want to think about those kinds of things. He'd rather just pretend that at the end of the school year it wasn't it, that there'd still be more school, more pranks, and more laughs ahead. The realism of war and buying his own food wasn't sometime he liked to think about.

"Yeah," replied James. "Once NEWTs are over with, we're going to have to stop pretending we're adults, but we'll have to _be_ adults. Just seems like we should have one last holiday without worrying about Muggle massacres or Dark Marks in the sky."

Lily patted James' leg and hooked her arm through his. Sirius gritted his teeth. He hated it when James and Lily got all _James and Lily_ on him, as though they were one person instead of two.

"My parents are pretending the war isn't even happening. The bloody gits," said Sirius. "Regulus is prob'ly eating all the sweets that would've gone to me right about now, the great ol' sod. He's no doubt going to wear a ridiculous mask tomorrow too."

"What are you talking about?" asked Lily, her eyes looking curiously at Sirius.

"Lily doesn't know Black tradition," James said.

"Oh, right, I forget," Sirius said, not particularly amused that he was going to have to explain about his family. His least favorite topics of discussion were the Black family and Snivellus. "Lemme borrow your wand." He held his hand out in front of Remus.

Remus shook his head. "You always do inappropriate things with it so _I'll_ get in trouble if anyone finds out it was us."

"But you _never_ get in trouble because no one expects you've actually done anything. Bloody prefect. I've seen the pranks you've helped pull. It's not fair. Doesn't matter; I'll get it myself."

Sirius leaned over Remus, placing a hand on the werewolf's thigh to balance himself as he reached to the bedside table and snatched up the wand. As he leaned over him, Remus' breath was hot against his neck. Sirius sat back down and removed his hand.

"_Accio invite!_"

A thick black envelope flew from Sirius' open trunk and across the room, right into his hand. He extracted his feet from the tangle of blankets on Remus' bed and walked the few steps towards Lily.

She studied the envelope as Sirius went to sit back down beside Remus.

"It's a ... masquerade?"

"Tradition. Every year on Boxing Day they have this masque ball thing. By invitation only and nobody is invited that isn't a pureblood. The whole idea is rather maddening."

"You never had fun?" asked Lily, looking up at Sirius.

"I suppose when I was little," he answered. "Before I was old enough to know better. There's music and dancing and food and liquor – lots of liquor. Mostly for my mum, who's a total lush."

Lily smiled sadly.

They talked about the tradition, about the masks and the party his parents threw. Normally Sirius was all about being the center of attention. He ate it up, everyone watching him and waiting for him to say something.

This time, though, he tried to put on an air, to pretend that he didn't mind talking about his family and all the fun they were probably having without him. He felt Remus' elbow nudge him softly and he glanced over. Remus winked and grinned; he was trying to reassure Sirius, trying to make him feel better. He had no idea how one small nudge lightened up Sirius' moods.

"Don't you like to dance?" asked Lily, referring back to the masque.

Remus laughed loudly, breaking his gaze with Sirius. "I suppose you've never seen him dance?"

"That's probably why he hasn't been invited back to a masque since he was twelve," added in Peter, hooting his own laughter into a pillow.

Lily looked at James, who was grinning, a bit of unruly black hair slipping across his forehead. She pushed it back with her fingers. Sirius gritted his teeth again.

"He's shit at dancing," said James.

"I am not!" snarled Sirius, growing annoyed. "You're just jealous of my slick moves."

"Oh, you _think_ you have all the moves," muttered Remus. "I'm just not so sure they're the right ones."

Sirius narrowed his eyes, but soon he was grinning as well. "You're jealous too."

Remus ignored Sirius and looked over at Lily. "I think wizarding masques are different than Muggle ones."

"Oh? How so?"

"The masks are all charmed," said James. "Right, Padfoot?"

"Huh?" Sirius turned his head away from Remus and looked at James. "Oh, yeah, they are." He turned his gaze to Lily. "Charmed to your face until midnight. If you have a full-faced mask then the mouth bits move when you talk or eat."

"Masques could be fun, I'd wager," said Lily.

"Not with my family. Bloody great sods, the lot of them."

"Sirius is especially moody around the holidays," explained Remus, a grin tugging on the corners of his mouth. He reached over slowly and placed his hand on Sirius' back, moving it up until his fingers touched his hair. "He gets himself into a mood and will brood for days. A lot like James, actually."

"I do not brood!" exclaimed James.

"You used to," said Peter, "whenever Lily would turn you down for a date."

"Well, we don't have that problem any more, do we?" James' tone suggested the topic was now closed.

"Wouldn't you be moody if your parents didn't want you home for Christmas?" snapped Sirius, moving away from Remus' touch. Next to him, he felt the other boy deflate. Sirius didn't mean it ... it was just that sometimes he wanted things with Remus so much that when he got them, they became _too_ much. It was probably because he was still so utterly confused over what he was feeling. The attraction to Remus was growing in intensity and whether this made him a pervert, a poofter, or someone who was just fucked up, Sirius had no idea. It was this uncertainty that made him shy away from Remus some of the time and then want to hold him and touch him at others.

"But you got that invitation," said Lily. "Surely that meant—"

"It wasn't sent so I'd come home. It was sent to remind me of what I'm not allowed to be a part of anymore. Came with a rather nasty note from my mum, telling me I could come back for it if I stopped acting like such a blood-traitor and a fool. If I stopped disgracing my family. Rot like that. I left that house a year ago, though. I'd change my name if I could. Be someone different."

"If the laws were more lax about changing names, you'd choose something stupid like Sirius Rock Star," commented Remus.

"Ho, ho, feeling funny tonight?" asked Sirius, surreptitiously overlapping some of his fingers with Remus' as both their hands rested on the bed. The gesture said _I'm sorry_ and he hoped Remus understood.

"Oh, definitely." Remus nodded and nudged him again, answering him with, _I know, it's all right_.

"The whole idea of my family parading around in masks is rather ironic," Sirius said, turning his attention back to Lily.

"How so?"

Sirius shrugged. "They spend their whole lives pretending they're people they're not. My mum tries to convince everyone she doesn't have rum with her cereal in the morning or have her whisky with a side of tea in the afternoons. My father pretends to be loyal to us – er, them. My mum and brother. Really, though, he's the biggest git of them all. He's got at least one mistress, some blonde bint that he's put up in Muggle London."

"I thought he hates Muggles?"

"Oh, he does, believe me, he does, but that's the point. Mum would never suspect he'd actually go to Muggle London to get his kicks, y'know? And my brother is just a huge git. A complete idiot. He's more like me than either of us actually want to admit, but he doesn't have the bullocks to tell my parents to sod off. He just pretends to be like them when I know – I _know_ – he doesn't want to be. He's got these plans to join You Know Who as well. He's going to fight for a cause that he can't even talk about because they'll get arrested. Fighting for something you can't talk about? What's the point?"

The conversation was really beginning to agitate him and Sirius rubbed his forehead, trying to ward off the impending headache; he almost always got one after talking about his family. Remus' hand went back up towards his back and then his neck and played with the ends of his long hair. This time Sirius didn't move away from the touch.

"I think everyone wears a mask," said Lily. "Sometimes it's a metaphorical one, but it's still there."

"I'm neither drunk nor high," said Sirius with a snort, "and I never have philosophical conversations unless under the influence."

"Think about it – when I'm at home, around my relatives, I have to pretend that the boarding school I go to teaches me maths and sciences and that I read Shakespeare and go to football or rugby games on the weekends. Other than my mother and father and sister, my family doesn't know the truth about me."

"Remus wears a mask!" Peter piped up.

"Shut _up_, Pete," snapped Sirius, his eyes looking rather dangerous.

"I meant because he's a werewolf and everyone thinks he has some incurable Muggle disease," said Peter hastily, looking rather frightened of Sirius' temper.

Remus removed his hand from the ends of his hair and went down Sirius' back, out of view from their friends, and it immediately calmed him. The fingers lifted up his shirt ever so slightly and pressed against the thin skin along his spine.

"Right," said Remus, "that's true."

Amazement filled Sirius at how Remus could touch him and still manage to have a normal conversation.

"I don't wear a mask," said James. "Do I?"

"You used to. When we first started dating you tried too hard and weren't always yourself. You tried to be what you thought I wanted you to be when really I just wanted to be you. The day you stopped the pretense and relaxed and made a joke was when I had a better glimpse of who you really were."

James looked as though he was considering this. "I suppose."

From across the room, Sirius rolled his eyes. Lily probably didn't know how spot on she had described James.

"What's your mask, Peter?" Lily asked, looking at the plump boy.

"My parents don't know how dumb I am."

"Oh, Peter, you're not dumb," she said, but Sirius was inclined to agree with Peter.

"Am so," said Peter rather sadly. "Summer after fifth year, James sent me his OWL results so I could magic my name over his so my parents wouldn't see that the only owl I got was an A in Muggle Studies."

"But you're an Animagus," argued Lily. "There's loads of adult wizards who can't even do that."

"Peter has to study to earn good marks," said Remus, "but he doesn't work hard enough. He's not stupid. Just lazy." He said the last part to Peter, who had gotten up from his bed and retrieved his pajamas from his trunk. Leave it to Remus to try and find the positive in this situation. Saying Peter wasn't stupid, only lazy? Sirius doubted anyone actually believed that.

"I'm going to change and head to bed – don't worry, I'll silence my bed curtains so you lot won't bother me."

Sirius didn't pay any attention as Peter left the dormitory to go off to the loo to change.

"What about you, Sirius," Lily asked. "What's your mask?"

"Don't have one."

"Everyone has one."

"Nope."

"Sirius." Lily was looking at him with a disbelieving expression. He felt Remus press fingers against his spine again.

"Well. Perhaps I have one, but no one knows it."

"No one?" repeated Lily, looking disappointed.

"Well, maybe some people know – _but I'm not telling you who_." Sirius refused to look at either Remus or James. This talk of masks was making him nervous.

Lily sniggered. "Sure, Sirius."

The door to the dormitory opened and Peter slipped inside, went to his bed, and shut the curtains. It was just as well; Sirius could hardly stand Peter lately anyway. He turned to James to say something, but caught him kissing Lily's neck.

"I swear to Merlin, would you two take it somewhere else?"

James lifted two fingers in Sirius' direction.

"Why don't we all just go down to the common room?" suggested Lily. "Just in case we keep Peter up …"

Sirius sniggered; Lily obviously had no more faith in Peter's ability to do a decent silencing charm than he did. In silent agreement, they all got up and left the dormitory, walking down the stairs towards the common room. The fire had almost completely died out and Lily took her wand out from her pocket and tried to reignite it. Orange light shot from the end of her wand and the common room began to warm up as the fire crackled and burned up more of the magic logs.

Sirius perched himself on the arm of the sofa, his bare feet seeking warmth underneath Remus' thigh as he sat about a foot away from him on the cushion. James was on the other side of Remus, lounging, as though he hadn't a care.

Lily looked over at James. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I miss being a kid," he said.

"You lot looked awfully childish when I first went upstairs, wrestling each other over homework."

A smile tugged on the corners of Remus' mouth and Sirius wiggled his toes underneath his thigh. James grinned broadly.

"Yeah, but we're young for short periods of time," said Sirius, "and then Remus is off reminding us again about books and studying for NEWTs. Or James is shoving the paper in our faces, ranting about the latest thing You Know Who's done – not that I wouldn't do it, too, Prongs, but you're just the only one of us who gets the _Prophet_ so you read it first."

"I miss being a kid," said James. "Maybe that's my mask now. I really wanna fight with Dumbledore and stop all this shit with Muggles and Muggle-borns being killed. I feel bloody useless here at Hogwarts. And I think that, really, I just wanna be twelve again. Remember twelve? So bloody easy. It was all sugar quills and dungbombs."

"Now it's dungbombs and Arthimancy," said Sirius, "which I'm still hacked off at you, Remus, for talking me into taking."

"Didn't want to suffer through it alone," said Remus. "I don't really suppose I ever felt much like a kid. Until I came here I hardly ever thought about anything 'cept being a werewolf."

"We gave you good distraction," said Sirius, nudging the other boy with his foot.

"Worried me to the point of heart attack with all your pranks. So thought I was going to get expelled at least once a week."

"But some of it was fun, wasn't it?" asked Sirius.

Remus nodded, then sighed. "I don't like this talk of masks. Though, everyone here knows I'm a werewolf and – well, it's good not to have secrets sometimes."

Sirius snorted. He was beginning to realize just how large the new masks were that he and Remus had suddenly started wearing. It was something almost as bad as being a werewolf and it was definitely something that had to be kept secret.

"When was the last time we even played Exploding Snap?"

"Sixth year," answered Remus automatically. "After March things seemed to get serious."

"Less pranks, more homework, more war," added Sirius.

"We should go outside," blurted Lily.

Sirius raised his eyebrows. Going outside was against the rules and he could hardly believe Lily Evans, _Head Girl_, had made the suggestion. It had come completely out of nowhere and was so uncharacteristic of Lily.

"It's snowing. We should be children while we still can. I'm still seventeen. I'm of age, but I shouldn't have to be an adult all the time. And, Remus, you're still seventeen too. We're all acting too old today. Besides, it's Christmas holiday, yeah? We should have at least one night of fun before we leave Hogwarts and are faced with adult responsibilities."

"Yeah, like cooking for ourselves and washing our laundry," said James gravely.

"Oh, what do you know, James?" said Lily with a teasing tone. "You lot don't wash your socks now and the house-elves do it for you! What's going to change when you're out on your own?"

"I wash my socks!" cried James.

"So that's why your dormitory smells like feet all the time?"

"It does not," said James, looking at his two friends for help.

"It does, mate," said Sirius. "Dirty socks and something else …"

"Sweat," offered Lily, "and stale food."

"Apple tart," said Remus. "James nicked some from the kitchens last week and I still think a bit of it is under something and beginning to rot."

Sirius snorted. That blasted apple tart.

"Let's go outside," said Lily. "Build a snowman or have a snowball fight. You know, just have some _fun_ before we get old."

"Why, Evans," said Sirius, winking, "I didn't know you had a wild streak."

Lily grinned back at him. "You've no idea about my wild streak."

James coughed into his fist and Sirius nearly fell off the sofa in shock. No idea bout her wild streak? Oh, my, James must've been holding out on them whenever he discussed the details of his relationship with Lily.

"You don't think playing in the snow is a waste of time?" asked Sirius.

Lily simply shook her head.

"You're Head Girl," commented Remus, looking rather skeptical. "Shouldn't you be worried about getting caught leaving the tower after curfew?"

"Oh, I think Dumbledore will forgive a frolic in the snow," said Lily. "It's not as though there's lessons tomorrow."

"You're an awful example," said Sirius. "I think I'm in love with you."

"Hey!" cried James. "Watch it. You have plenty of girlfriends already, yeah? Go find one of them to snog and stay away from mine."

"I don't have girlfriends," said Sirius. "I am a man of the world. I will not be tied down by any bloody girl."

James and Sirius exchanged a lengthy glance. Sirius knew that there really wasn't much point in denying how his relationship with Remus had changed now. James _knew_, but the way he had stepped back and just accepted it was a testimony to his integrity and Sirius knew in that instance he would do anything for his best mate and vice-versa.

"Come on," implored Lily. "Let's just go. If you want to be children again, this is the perfect way to do it."

"Thought you were uptight, Evans," said Sirius. "You don't think this is a waste of time?"

Lily narrowed her eyes. "Uptight? Never mind, I'll ignore that. And, no, it's not a waste of time. Sometimes you have to be immature, yeah? To get yourself through the day. It's all right to have fun. It doesn't always have to be _adult_ fun."

As soon as he noticed what Lily had actually said, Sirius began to laugh. Remus and James joined in.

"I meant adult fun – like plays or going to the symphony or going to the cinema! You lot have dirty, rotten, _filthy_ minds. I'm going to get my coat."

Lily left and the three boys drug themselves upstairs to quietly get their coats and scarves. As they descended the stairs again, Remus brushed against Sirius. In the common room, he sat down on the sofa and shoved his feet in his boots and laced them.

"Hmm. Do you s'pose I'll get frostbite if I don't wear socks?" asked Sirius, looking at the shoes he'd just shoved his bare feet into.

"Yes," said Remus. "Socks are important to wear in the snow. You're going to be a sorry sight when your toes fall off."

They walked in silence out of the common room and down towards the entry hall. Remus shivered as he walked, as though already anticipating the cold snow outside. The front doors were locked, but the boys knew a hidden door in the wall.

"It's really a door pretending to be a wall," said Sirius, as though that made perfect sense. "You just have to run your hand along it the right way ... There. See?" He turned to look back at Lily who appeared to be impressed.

Outside, the snow was falling lightly, dusting the ground. The snow was very white and hadn't been dirtied by students walking through it yet. It was soft and crunched as they walked. Sirius bent down and picked up a batch of snow, pressing it together between his gloved fingers, making a ball. He tried to toss it at Remus, but was hit in the face by a snowball first. Yelling in indignation, Sirius ran after Remus, stopping only to collect more snow.

There was a small blizzard between the four of them, bits of snow flying off the snowballs as they were thrown or getting kicked up by their feet as they ran around each other. They were loud, yelling and shrieking at each other as they fought with the snow. They all collapsed together, in a heap, breathing heavily, their stomachs jiggling from laughter. Lily laid next to James, their sides touching from shoulder to ankle. Sirius watched as James curled his gloved hand around hers, using free fingers to push her fringe away from her forehead. Sirius sighed and moved next to Remus, using the boy's stomach as a pillow. He felt fingers run through his long hair and massaging his scalp. Those fingers felt so good Sirius almost had to move; it wasn't supposed to feel this good.

"This is what it's supposed to be like," said Sirius, feeling Lily's eyes on him, but not caring what she saw. She belonged to James, and James to her, so she was bound to notice at some point that the dynamic between him and Remus had drastically changed.

"What's what supposed to be like?" whispered Lily.

"Taking off all the bloody masks. Being, y'know, ourselves. I could never be like this around anyone else."

"There's comfort in being able to act like a kid again and not worry about being judged," replied Lily.

God, thought Sirius, Lily had no idea how right she was. He'd worried about James at first, but he knew that there would never been any judgment. Never.

"When we go back inside, it's back to being adults," said Remus.

"Then let's never go back," said James.

"It's a nice thought," said Lily, still whispering. "I wish we could promise each other it'd always be like this."

"It won't, Evans," said Sirius and for the very first time, the way he said her last name sounded like an endearment instead of an accusation. She wasn't all bad and she was good for James. He was an adult around her, and even if Sirius didn't want to be grown-up, it was inevitable. "But it's nice anyway. Forgetting everything and just lying here, chasing snowflakes."

They stayed there for a while, watching the snow fall down, sticking to chapped lips and dark eyelashes, melting on tongues and skin, burying them in innocence and reveries. This would be a memory that wouldn't fade, that wouldn't be tucked away in some back corner of the mind to be forgotten.

Sirius wouldn't have been surprised if someone told him they'd laid outside for hours, nor would he have been surprised if it had only been a few minutes. Either way, they eventually stood up and tried to stretch the cold out of their bodies. Remus brushed the snow out of Sirius' hair and Sirius stood there, letting him. They walked back to the castle first, their shoulders touching as they stomped through the snow.

XXXXXXX

James pulled Sirius aside once they were back in the common room and told him that he wasn't going back to the dormitory that night. Sirius had no idea where James expected to go since boys weren't allowed in the girls' dormitories. Though, James was excellent at Transfiguration so he could probably make a mattress out of a desk in one of the unused classrooms.

Upstairs in the dormitory, Sirius pulled off his clothes and rummaged through his trunk for his pajamas.

"Socks," said Remus, tying the drawstring of his flannel pajama bottoms.

"What?" said Sirius, pulling his sweatshirt over his head and turning to look at Remus.

"You're going to fidget in your bed until your feet get warm, so why don't you put on socks?"

"Hate socks," muttered Sirius with a yawn.

It was contagious and Remus yawned as well.

"Too tired to read?" Sirius asked, pulling back his blankets and climbing under the covers. He laid on his side and turned his back just enough to see Remus out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah."

"Oh." Sirius yawned again, noticing how Remus looked hesitant. "You coming or not?"

Remus came over and laid next to Sirius, closing the bed curtains and pulling the blankets around them both. Sirius felt icy fingers lift up the front of his sweatshirt, but he didn't say anything as those fingers ran up and down from his stomach to his chest. He felt Remus pull him back and they were pressed tightly together.

Sirius felt like crying. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Boys didn't do this with other boys. Those fingers should belong to a girl, with girl parts and girl hair and girl breath against his neck. But it wasn't a girl, it was Remus and Remus was very much boy.

Not wanting to face away from Remus, Sirius turned over on his other side, his front now flush with Remus'. A single tear formed in the corner of his eye and he opened his lids to look at Remus. He moved a little closer, his mouth hovering near Remus', near enough to taste his breath. Remus didn't move and Sirius shut his eyes tightly, that tear dripping out.

"I know," said Remus, using his thumb to rid Sirius of the offending tear. "Believe me, I know."

"This isn't what's supposed to happen."

"I know."

"We can never tell anyone we do this."

"I know."

"This—"

"Do you want me to go back to my bed?"

Sirius shook his head. "No."

"Then, go to sleep." Remus shut his eyes, and moved his head so that he and Sirius were nose-to-nose.

Sirius closed his eyes and nodded, breathing quietly through his mouth, sharing Remus' breath.

XXXXXXX

**End Part III**

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	4. Chapter 4

XXXXXXX 

**Part IV**

XXXXXXX

"You seem to be in a better mood," said James, sliding into the seat next to Sirius in History of Magic during one of the first days of class of the new year. He took out some parchment and a self-inking quill and readied them for a nice game of hangman.

"Do I? Why aren't you sitting with Evans?" Sirius watched James make the dashes for the puzzle. "A."

James wrote down one A. "She's sitting with Remus. Look."

Sirius looked at the desks behind him, where James usually sat with Lily. Remus was sitting in James' place, discussing something with Lily. It looked important, but Sirius couldn't imagine what it could possibly be. He wasn't really aware that Lily and Remus were even friends outside of studying with one another for Charms or Defense. Since Gryffindor shared History of Magic with the Ravenclaws, Peter had taken it upon himself to sit with Carmine Brocklehurst, a seventh-year in that house. Carmine took about as good of notes as Remus and seemed oblivious whenever Peter stared at his parchment, copying everything he wrote.

James elbowed Sirius. "Go. Gimme another letter."

"Er, all right. B."

"If you go in order you're gonna get hangman," said James, adding a circle for the head on the hangman.

"Fine. L."

"Oh, good one. There's an L."

"What're they talking about?" asked Sirius, gesturing back to Remus and Lily.

"Worried your boyfriend is gossiping behind your back?" smirked James. "That's what girlfriends do, y'know."

"First of all," said Sirius, lowering his voice, "he's not my boyfriend. Second of all, he's not a girl."

"I reckoned he'd be the girl in the relationship," said James.

"D. And no. Neither of us would be the girls. Shut up, Prongs."

James scribbled a D on the parchment. "Someone has to be the girl, yeah? One has to be the top, the other the bottom."

"Would you shut up? We're not together."

"You should be."

Sirius stared at James as Binns drifted into the classroom through the front wall and began to lecture the class on what seemed like the thirty-seven _thousandth_ Goblin Revolt.

"Don't say shit like that to me," snapped Sirius. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I saw how you were over Christmas. So'd Lily. I'm not completely thick. Pick another letter."

"The first word is my name. You're so predictable."

"Pick a letter."

"Christ, fine. P. We were nothing over Christmas."

James shook his head. "You were all over each other. I think even _Peter_ noticed."

"Well, goddamn if Peter noticed I'm surprised Professor Binns hasn't."

"You're no fun when you get snarky. You can't deny that you fancy him now, though. It's rather clear."

Sirius felt his body grow hot with annoyance and anger. "F. O. T."

"You can't choose three letters in a row."

"Watch me."

James sighed and added in the letters.

"What the fuck is that?" asked Sirius, looking at the puzzle. "Padfoot ... lo ... oo ... That's what it says."

"That's what it says 'cause you haven't guessed the other letters!"

Sirius sighed and glanced at the puzzle again. "James, if you're my best mate you'll respect my wishes, right?"

"Uh, sure," said James with a smirk. "What're your wishes?"

"Don't smile at me like that. I don't want to talk about Remus. Drop it. I swear to Merlin, if you don't drop it I'm going to fucking go mad. M."

James wrote down an M.

"E."

James wrote an E.

Sirius looked at the puzzle and suddenly, it made sense. "I'm going to fucking kill you."

"Where's the fun in that?" James handed the puzzle to Sirius. "What's it say?"

Sirius shook his head, refusing to answer.

"What's it _say_?"

Binns floated over and hovered about a foot above the ground in front of James and Sirius.

"Mr. Potts, Mr. Brown, do we have a problem here?"

Sirius shook his head. "No."

"Very well, then," said Binns, and floated back up to the front of the classroom. He droned on about the Goblin Revolts as though he'd never paused his lecture.

Sirius sat in silence for the rest of the class period. He crossed his arms over his chest and slouched in his chair. James had really hacked him off this time.

At the end of the period, Sirius collected his school things and shoved the hangman game to James, not wanting to even look at it.

"Are you all right?" Remus asked, coming up behind them.

"Sirius is in a mood," replied James, standing up and throwing his satchel over his shoulder and putting an arm around Lily who had just walked up as well. "I think he blames me for it."

"I _do_ blame you for it," grumbled Sirius.

Remus looked down at the desks. "Playing games again? You know, one day you might want to take ..."

When his voice trailed off, Sirius inwardly groaned. He knew that Remus was a clever bloke and must have figured out James' little puzzle.

P A D F O O T  
L O -- E --  
M O O -- -- !

"Hmmm," hummed Remus, going rather pink about the ears and neck.

Sirius was furious.

"It's just a joke," defended James.

"It's not a very funny one," Sirius barked.

"Hey, guys," said Peter, walking up. "What's that?"

"_Nothing!_" snarled Sirius, snatching the hangman and crumpling it up into a tight paper ball.

"Sirius ..." said Remus, placing a hand on his shoulder. Sirius shrugged him off.

"Don't," he said.

"James' puzzle was stupid," said Remus, "so don't take it so seriously."

Lily whispered something in James' ear and they both began to back away and move towards the door. The rest of the class was already gone and Binns had disappeared through the wall again.

"We're going to gets seats in the Great Hall," said Lily, tugging on James' sleeve. "We'll save you two some food if you're late. Come on, Peter."

As soon as they were out of sight, Remus immediately said, "Did I make you uncomfortable over Christmas holiday? I thought what we did was shared, but if I did something you didn't like, then I'm very sorry."

"You didn't do anything," said Sirius, sighing and jumping up to sit on top of his desk. "This feels so _weird_ and I suppose that, y'know, it's even weirder that people know."

"Only James and Lily _suspect_."

Sirius shrugged. "They're people."

Remus took a step closer to Sirius. "If I'm making you uncomfortable, I can stop."

"You're not," said Sirius. "_You_'re not. I'm doing it to myself."

"We don't have to—"

"No," said Sirius. He reached out and took hold of the front of Remus' open robes and pulled him to him. He clung to him, breathing into his neck. "I'm sorry."

Sirius lifted his head and looked at Remus. The boy wasn't particularly tall or good-looking. He had that uneven scar that ran across the bridge of his nose and his sandy-brown hair fell all the way down to his eyes, almost hiding them. He was all straight lines no matter which angle you looked at him. There weren't any curves. His mouth was thin, his hands big, and his neck contained an Adam's apple. He was a boy who was turning into a man and no matter how hard Sirius tried, he couldn't keep from wanting him. It was something he was trying to accept, but so far couldn't.

His eyes strayed down to Remus' mouth. They were back to where they had been only a couple weeks ago and Sirius was no closer to kissing his mouth now than he had been then. He pushed Remus away and the boy stumbled backwards.

"Oh, god, I'm sorry!" Sirius blurted. His fingers curled into fists and he jumped off the desk where he was sitting and punched it instead. "Fuck! Goddamn – _fuck_. I just have to – I'll see you later."

As soon as Sirius had left the classroom, he broke off into a run and ran all the way down the corridors and up the changing staircases until he came to the third floor corridor, which was thankfully still abandoned. He backed up against one of the stone walls and slid down until he was sitting.

He didn't know how he came to be this way. He wasn't cursed or poisoned, therefore he had to assume that this was how he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be in love with another boy. Sirius shut his eyes tightly. If his family ever found out about this ... If he was so unlovable before, he was certainly unlovable now. No one in his family would _ever_ accept him back if they knew that he wanted to kiss someone of the same sex.

This whole time Sirius had tried not to think too deeply about it. He tried to just go day by day and act normally, act as though nothing was changing. Only that game was done and over with and he was going to have to deal with himself sooner or later.

He didn't want to think about it, but he didn't want to lose Remus either. If they stopped now, they might never go back to being friends.

Sirius never imagined that being a teenager could get so fucking complicated.

XXXXXXX

That night, Sirius crept back into the dormitory around midnight. He tiptoed to Remus' bed and parted the curtains.

"Remus?"

The other boy turned and looked up at him from the darkness of his blankets and bed hangings.

"I'm sorry."

"You already said that."

"I know. I just – I'm sorry. I'm fucked up. I can't help it. I don't want to make you wait."

"Wait for what?"

"For me."

Remus sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "I didn't know I _was_ waiting. You seem to assume that I'm not as confused about this as you are."

"You're not? Er, I mean, you are? Just as confused?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"And I was going to say that it might not be fair to you to have to wait for me."

"Oh."

"So don't worry so much, Pads. Go to sleep."

"Will you come read?"

Remus shook his head and laid back down in his bed. "No."

"Will you at least sleep—"

"Not tonight. I think we're making this too complicated for ourselves. We did too much over Christmas and now there's all this confusion. You should sleep in your bed and I'll sleep in mine, all right?"

Sirius nodded and dropped the bed curtains. The ironic thing was that during everything they did over the Christmas holiday, they hadn't really done anything at all. Perhaps it was the _not_ doing that made them so confused.

After he changed into pajamas and climbed into bed, Sirius found himself in a dreamful sleep. Where in real life he hesitated and was too anxious to do it, in his dreams all he did was kiss Remus, their bare skin touching and their breaths mingling.

XXXXXXX

Remus poured himself into studying for the NEWTs. It was beginning to annoy Sirius as they hardly ever shared a bed anymore except on the weekends. Remus stayed up even later than Sirius did during the week.

The other students liked to talk about how big Sirius' ego was, how he thought he was clever, good-looking, and Merlin's gift to women in general. And his ego was very sturdy and could withstand any insult or injury. But Sirius' ego wasn't prepared for the Remus' obsession with NEWTs. He couldn't help but wonder if this was Remus' way of avoiding him – _them_ – and what was happening whenever they were alone. Those insecurities melted away when Friday nights came and Remus parted the bed curtains and laid next to him. Then, they were back again when Sunday came and Remus claimed needing to do last-minute studying before Monday's lessons.

"The exams aren't for another two months," Sirius whinged one day, having to resort to using the Marauder's Map to find Remus in a corner of the library.

"So? I need to study."

"You won't die if you don't get all O's, y'know."

Remus looked up from his books and narrowed his eyes at Sirius.

"Padfoot, shut the bloody hell up, will you?"

Surprised, because Remus never swore, Sirius grew angry. "What? Why? What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" Remus reached out to touch him, but Sirius dodged his hand, not because he was angry, but because right now the feel of his fingers against his skin would be too overwhelming. As he moved away, Remus looked hurt and Sirius felt like a giant arse. Not knowing what to say, Sirius tried to turn it back on Remus and pretend he didn't want to be touched because he was hacked off.

"Are you avoiding me?" asked Sirius. "I don't force you to sleep in my bed, y'know."

Remus accidentally snapped his quill in half. "Will you lower your voice? Sirius, you don't get it, and it's not your fault. I _have_ to do perfectly on my examinations. It'll be hard enough finding someone who will hire a werewolf. It'll be next to impossible to find someone who will hire a werewolf who doesn't have any NEWTs. Don't you see?"

Sirius did see and he felt like an even bigger arse.

"I know you like it when you're the center of attention, but take a Calming Draught or something because you're beginning to stress me out."

Sirius took the hint and stood up, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets.

As he started to walk away, he heard Remus say, "I would never avoid you."

He wanted to smile, but he just didn't feel like it. All this studying was taking away from his time with Remus. James still tried to spend time with the boys and with Lily, but his girlfriend was winning more and more lately and sometimes he and Sirius went _days_ without having a proper conversation.

The strange thing about what was happening with Remus was that they _still_ didn't really _do_ anything. They gave each other secret touches during meals, classes, and in the common room. They slept in the same bed at least once a week. Yet, they never kissed. Never fooled around. Certainly never got off. Sometimes Remus was gone by the time Sirius woke up, but if he remained there past sunrise, Sirius would awaken and feel both their morning erections pressed against one another. They never spoke of this, never mentioned how weird it was for that to happen between two boys who were supposed to be mates and nothing more.

As time wore on, Sirius became more and more preoccupied with progressing the physical with Remus. It almost became an obsession. He'd sit in class and think about grabbing him and kissing him, or about pinning him down one night in bed and sucking on his lower lip. He thought of the things he used to do with girls and applied them to Remus. He never did them however.

It wasn't Remus' fault though; Sirius was a mess. He was completely fucked up and he couldn't imagine why Remus kept coming to his bed. More than once, they'd been sitting in the common room or in class, and Remus' fingers would be playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, and Sirius would be so overcome with negative emotions that he'd push Remus away. He didn't mean to – he didn't want to push him away, but Sirius was conflicted. As much as he wanted Remus, he didn't _want_ to want him. He wanted his feelings to go back to being normal. This was not something accepted in the wizarding world and from what he understood, it was unacceptable in the Muggle world as well. Sirius was setting himself up for damnation and failure.

And he felt guilty for Remus as well. Here he was, a werewolf, already cursed to live in shame for his condition, never going to be able to have or keep a job, and Sirius wanted to add _more_ prejudice in his life? It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair, but Sirius wanted what he wanted, and as far as he could tell, Remus wanted it as well.

XXXXXXX

James never said anything to Sirius about his Remus obsession. Sometimes, Sirius would look up and notice that James was watching the two of them. He didn't watch in a weird way, but in a protective way, as though he was concerned for both of them and wanted to make sure neither of them got hurt.

Things with Remus were still confusing, and Sirius just tried not to think about it at all. That plan sometimes lasted as long as breakfast, but by the time their first lesson came, Sirius would find himself thinking of nothing _but_ Remus. He wondered if Remus was as consumed as he was.

In the common room, on one of the very last days of March, Remus was explaining to Lily about a very complicated spell they were learning in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Sirius had no idea what Remus was talking about, but he was watching the boy's mouth move very intently. A couple of times, Remus' tongue swept across his bottom lip, moistening it.

"Sirius? ... Sirius? _Padfoot!_"

Sirius jumped in surprise. Remus was looking at him and had obviously been calling his name several times. Sirius glanced around – James, Peter, and Lily were all looking at him, as well as a couple of sixth-years who had been listening to Remus' discussion with Lily.

And they had all seen Sirius stare blindly at Remus' mouth.

Without so much as a word or explanation, Sirius got up and walked to the boys' dormitory stairs. Once he was sure he was out of sight, he quickly jogged up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He kicked his desk chair and it toppled over with a loud clanking noise.

"Sirius—"

The dormitory room door opened and Sirius was all prepared to tell Remus to just go away, but when he turned, it wasn't Remus standing there, but Lily.

"Er, Evans. Hello."

"Hello." She placed her hands on her hips. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. What's wrong with you?"

"Sirius—"

"Evans."

"_Sirius_."

"_Evans_."

"Stop it!" yelled Lily.

Sirius nearly fell over in surprise. He'd seen Lily's temper, but he'd never seen Lily's temper directed at _him_.

"You're going to ruin your chance with Remus."

"Oh, stuff it, Evans."

"No, I will not stuff it, Black. And, jeez, call me Lily, will you? I noticed it over Christmas," said Lily, her tone softening. "You two were in your own world half the time. It was really sweet, actually."

"I'm not sweet. And neither is Remus. He's a werewolf, y'know."

"I'm perfectly aware of what Remus is." Lily tossed her red hair over her shoulder and held her head up a little higher. "I'm a girl and I know these things. It's very obvious you fancy Remus, but you keep doing weird things and pushing him away. Don't you think you're going to push him away for good?"

"Why is it all _my_ fault? I didn't ask you to evaluate my love life, _Lily_."

"I wasn't aware you had one." Lily sighed. "I really like you, Sirius. I do. And not only because James likes you, but because deep down, I think you're a really decent bloke. I think your family has done a number on that brain of yours, though, but you need to get over it or you're going to push him away for good. I can say it a hundred more times, if you'd like, but it'll still be true. You'll push him away—"

"For good, yeah, yeah. You've no fucking idea what's going on. You're just Miss Accepting of Everything, aren't you? Of the lycanthropy, of _this_, but what Remus and I – the thing, our thing, whatever you want to call it – he and I could be ostracized for this. I mean, even more so than just for the lycanthropy."

"How do you figure?" asked Lily.

"Well, loads of people think that werewolves aren't evil or Dark by choice, yeah? Remus has a better chance of finding _those_ people than finding the people who don't mind that he has dirty thoughts about another boy."

"Why do you care what other people think?" asked Lily.

"I don't care! I don't care for _me_," insisted Sirius. "But I care for _him_."

"It doesn't sound that way."

"It doesn't?"

Lily shook her head. "No. And don't you think that if Remus doesn't care that you shouldn't care either? Now stop being an idiot and just talk to Remus about it. I cannot believe you two have been together this long without discussing it."

"We're not together," grumbled Sirius.

"No? Well, you certainly act like it."

"D'you have anything new to say? 'Cause I wouldn't mind not having this conversation anymore."

Lily sighed. "Oh, Sirius. Why're you so angry?"

"M'not _angry_," roared Sirius.

"You should just accept who you are—"

"And who do you think I am?"

Lily flinched. "I think you're—"

"_Don't_ say it," said Sirius, his voice lowering and having a dangerous tone. "Don't."

"You don't like hearing it?"

Sirius swallowed. "I don't like thinking about it."

"Well, perhaps you would feel better if you accepted that things are the way they are."

"Accepted—?"

"You can't change who you are. If you just accepted things, then I'd wager you'd be happier for it."

Sirius shook his head. "I think it's far more complicated than that."

"Only because you're making it that way. Now, I'm going down to the common room and you're going to talk to Remus."

"Not today!" cried Sirius, knowing he didn't have the balls to start a conversation like the one he was having with Lily. At least, not yet.

"Fine, but soon, all right?" Lily went to the door and turned the knob. "And I meant what I said, about liking you. I do, but I like Remus, too, and I don't want either of you to get hurt."

And then she left Sirius alone in the dormitory.

XXXXXXX

The still-frosty mornings of March melted into April and the new month brought along new realizations. School was going to be _over_. For _good_. With school being done with, Sirius knew he had to find a place to live. James told him he could continue to stay at his house, but Mr Potter had been sick ever since Valentine's and Sirius got the feeling that he wasn't going to get any better. Besides, Lily was going to use her Potions skills to good use and work for the research department at the Ministry, which meant that she would be letting a flat in London. Sirius figured James would be over there most of the time, which would leave him at the Potters' by himself. There was nothing worse for Sirius than being alone and ignored.

Sirius began collecting ads and brochures for houses and flats. With a tap of his wand on the ad, a visual would pop up so that he could see exactly what the rooms looked like. He usually went looked through his small collection of ads in the common room because the lower years were in such awe that someone in their house was trying to let their own place.

In the middle of April, Sirius had made two piles – one for houses, one for flats. The ones he was no long considering, he threw into the fire.

"You're going to burn yourself," admonished Lily, charming a Muggle paperclip to dance around on James' lap.

"Mmm," said Sirius, not really paying attention.

The four Marauders and Lily were seated near the fireplace, the best seats in the common room. Sirius was on the floor, going through his piles of ads for the seventh or eighth time. Remus moved from the sofa to sit near him.

"Let me see them," he said, reaching for a house.

"Not too busy with NEWTs?" snapped Sirius.

Remus blinked and looked a bit hurt. Sirius felt guilty. He didn't mean to always lash out and snap at everyone, but it wasn't something he could always control.

"This one's too big," said Remus. "You don't really need three bedrooms, do you? What would you do with the extra space?"

"I guess," said Sirius, taking the ad from Remus. He tossed it over his shoulder and it landed in the fireplace, shooting flames up four feet high. A couple of first years yelped in surprise and Sirius smirked.

"This is a one-bedroom, but the rooms all look really big," said Remus, handing the ad over to Sirius. "You hate household spells, so it'd be less to clean."

"Where will you live after we leave school, Remus?" Lily asked.

Sirius could have spit at her. Remus always got red about the ears whenever someone asked him what his future plans were. He could not afford to live on his own and he could not get a job. Both of those things were because of his lycanthropy and Lily should know better than to ask questions like that.

"With my parents, I suppose," he answered, swallowing hard.

"Don't look so ashamed. You like your parents, don't you?"

"Oh, sure. They're fine. They don't bother me, at any rate. It's not really the same as being on your own, though, is it?"

Lily shook her head. "No, I suppose not. I'll go home for a few weeks while I set up my flat, then I'll be free. I think it'll be nice."

"Right ..."

Lily looked at her wristwatch. "Oh, James, we have patrols."

"Can we do them together?"

"You're perfectly capable of patrolling the dungeons and ground floor on your own, aren't you?" asked Lily, standing up.

James grumbled, but he stood up as well and left the common room with her, adjusting his Head Boy badge as he did so. Without James around to protect him from Sirius' moods, Peter jumped at the chance to play Exploding Snap with the sixth-years.

"You know ..." said Sirius slowly. "You could always live with me."

"Pardon?"

"I'd make rent really cheap."

Remus looked him straight in the eye. "You've a one-bedroom in your hand."

"So?"

"So would we share the same bedroom, too, then?"

Sirius didn't answer and looked away. He felt a hand reach down and place itself low on his knee. Sirius flinched and moved his leg away from Remus' touch.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Er, I gotta – I'll be back – have to, er, get something ..." Sirius pushed his piles of ads together and stacked them into his hand and stood up. He ran up the stairs, breathing heavily, and mentally hexing himself for being such a fucking idiot.

Throwing the ads across the room, he flopped down on his back on his bed and rubbed at his eyes, gritting his teeth and biting back a scream. God, he was so fucked up.

"Sirius?"

He ignored Remus as the boy closed the dormitory door. He heard a familiar squelching sound that let him know Remus had Imperturbed the door. The bed squeaked and sagged as another body joined him on the mattress.

"Sirius?"

He felt Remus' hands take hold of his wrists and move his palms away from his face. He knew he would have to look at Remus; he couldn't simply avoid him, especially since he was sitting right next to him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not—"

"_Don't_ lie to me," Remus repeated, a dangerous tone to his voice. "You always let me touch you, except lately ..."

"I know. I don't know. I've no idea."

"No idea at all?"

Sirius pushed himself up off the bed and stood. "It's not _right_."

"What's not?"

"This," said Sirius, motioning between them. "This _thing_ we're doing."

"I wasn't aware we were doing anything. In fact, I think we spend a lot of time doing not much of anything."

"Yeah."

"_Exactly_. So what's the problem?"

Sirius shook his head. "I don't know."

"I don't have to sleep in your bed sometimes. I thought you wanted me there or I wouldn't have—"

"I want you there."

"—come, only with you asking me to read to you and all that – wait, you do? Still?"

Sirius nodded.

"So, then what's the problem? You've touched me loads of times around other people, but if you'd rather I didn't, then I won't."

"Fuck, no, it's not – I just. _Fuck_, Remus, what the fuck is going on?"

"I'm sorry?"

"With us."

"Oh, I didn't—"

"This is not normal," said Sirius. "I don't know what I want. I can't stand not to have you keep – y'know – sleeping in my bed and ... and everything ... but it's not – what if people find out?"

"Do you care if people find out? We haven't done anything. I think you want to stop."

Sirius shook his head. "No, I don't. This is bloody ridiculous."

"What is? You're not making any sense."

"Did you know that I haven't fooled around with a girl since bloody _sixth year_?"

Remus looked taken aback. "... Really?"

"_Yeah_. Isn't that unbelievable? I've never – I'm always – you know – with a girl."

"Quite the Casanova."

"Right. _Right!_ Exactly. It's just ... Christ, Remus, you've really fucked with my head."

"I'm sorry."

"It's just – I'm not gay."

"Well, that's good news."

Sirius' mouth gaped open in surprise. Remus was never sarcastic. "Well, it's just – aren't you?"

"I don't think so. Maybe. Does it matter?"

"Well ..." Sirius paused. "I don't know. Does it?"

"Now, this might be a nasty rumor floating about, but I've heard you can fancy both."

"Both."

"Girls and boys."

"_Both_, oh, right of course." Sirius knew he sounded delirious, but this concept of _both_ was brilliant. He had no idea why he hadn't entertained that thought more. He had been so concerned with not trying to figure out whether he was gay, that he hadn't really thought that maybe he actually _wasn't_. Perhaps he should have spent less time avoiding this conversation with Remus and actually had it.

"I'm really rather shocked," said Remus. "You're so conceited usually. You never have to worry about friends or getting girls to fancy you. You haven't even _opened_ a book for the NEWTs, but you'll probably pass everything anyway. You have a way of making everyone think you're brilliant and everyone pretty much _does_. Yet, you're afraid of ... this?"

Sirius shrugged.

"Why? I know I said before that I was confused as well, but that was months ago. I thought we would both have figured things out before now. Only you haven't. Really, though, Sirius, why are you so scared?"

Sirius shrugged again. His hands fell limply by his sides as he looked at Remus, sitting on the bed, looking very curious.

"I imagine it partly has to do with me being a boy. But also because it actually means something this time?" ventured Remus. "Or because you _want_ it to mean something?"

"How d'you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Know what I'm thinking?"

Remus sniggered. "Living with you for seven years, I suspect."

"I don't think – or rather, I know that I haven't had the most meaningful relationships, but it never mattered. Now it feels like it _should_ matter and you're not the person it was supposed to matter with. God, am I making sense? I mean, only now it _does_ matter and you're a boy."

"I've noticed."

"You're right, though. About the other things. Everyone _does_ think I'm rather brilliant, don't they?"

Remus shook his head with a small smile on his face.

"And I _am_ good-looking. Better looking than James, I should think."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Moving on," he said. "So, do you actually want me to move in with you?"

"Maybe ..."

"Maybe."

Sirius shrugged. "I'd wager I'd get rather lonely."

"You probably need someone around to give you attention."

"Mmm."

"Do you want this?" asked Remus.

Sirius looked around the room, everywhere but at Remus. "What's 'this?'"

"Whatever we make it, I suppose. Sirius, are you worried that your family will find out? They've already disowned you once, they can't do it twice."

"Is it stupid that as much as I hate them, I don't want them to hate me?"

"No," answered Remus. He said it so firmly that Sirius couldn't help but look at him. "Remember what I said a while back? About how none of your friends would ever tell you we don't love you? So stop worrying about your family and other people."

"What about you? You're a werewolf. This'll just – I mean, this'll make it even harder for you to get a job or ... y'know ... people will just hate you more for it."

"Not if they don't find out. Believe me, Sirius, I had the same thoughts as you did at first. I really did. I kept thinking that here you are, with all that money your uncle left you. You are popular and if you wanted a job, you could do anything you liked. I would only bring you down. I almost stopped reading to you because I'd convinced myself I was all wrong for you and that what we were doing was nonsense. People might not hire you if they knew you were friends with a werewolf, letting alone _living_ with one."

"But you changed your mind?"

Remus nodded.

"Why? How?"

"Because the other option was not being with you and that would be harder to live with."

Sirius swallowed. All those girls in the past. The snogging, the touching, the occasional shagging. None of them had loved him and he certainly hadn't loved them. But here love was, staring him in the face with bright brown eyes and sandy brown hair and a jagged scar across the nose, and Sirius couldn't understand how or why love would want him. How could anyone want someone whose own _mother_ didn't love him? It was preposterous.

Remus stood up and walked closer to Sirius, standing right in front of him. His hands shook as he reached out and placed them on Sirius' hips, pulling him forward. Sirius watched as Remus' tilted his head up just slightly, as he was a couple inches shorter, and moved his mouth towards' Sirius'.

Sirius pushed Remus back. "What're you doing?"

"Shutting you up."

"What? That's how you're shutting me up?"

"Do you want it or not? You can't go only halfway. It's all or nothing. Do you understand?"

Sirius nodded.

"So? Do you want it or not?"

Sirius nodded again. "Yeah. I want—"

He didn't finish his sentence. Remus put his mouth against his, moving his lips, opening Sirius' mouth with his tongue.

Oh, god, with his _tongue_. Sirius had forgotten how to breathe. His heart had stopped beating. He was going to pass out. He was such a blasted idiot; he'd fantasized about kissing Remus for months and now it was happening. Remus was kissing him and he was standing there like a fool, not even moving. Right. He needed to move and he needed to move _now_.

Sirius fisted Remus' shirt, keeping hold on him, as though Remus might suddenly vanish. Minutes later, Remus pulled back, resting his forehead against Sirius', breathing in deeply.

"Thank god," muttered Sirius. "I wasn't sure what I was gonna do if that didn't happen soon."

"You almost didn't let it."

"Right, I know. I'm an idiot."

"No," said Remus. "Just ... confused."

"Word of the fucking year, that."

Remus sniggered. "Yeah."

Sirius could feel Remus' breath against his face.

"You're sure you want it?" asked Remus.

Sirius nodded. "Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Christ, Moony, I'm so fucked up – how did you stand it?"

"Because half the time I was figuring things out for myself, figuring out who I was. That's why it seemed as though I didn't mind waiting for you to start accepting what was happening between us. I told you I was confused, didn't I?"

Sirius nodded. "And so now you want this? Are you sure?"

"I told you – I can't _not_ have this," said Remus, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I think – I don't – I can't not have you, either. I think. God, we fucking talk too much, like a pair of girls."

"Then what—"

"I'm going to shut you up now," said Sirius, interrupting Remus.

"How're you—"

Sirius pushed his mouth against Remus', fitting their lips together, and then touching his tongue with his own. His body stirred, filling with renewed energy as though his veins were pumping electrical currants instead of blood. He pushed against Remus, walking them backwards until the back of Remus' knees hit his bed and he sat.

Their mouths broke for a moment as Remus maneuvered to the center of the bed, Sirius moving over him. Their eyes locked for a brief moment and Sirius felt Remus' hand move under his shirt and rest on his back. It's all right, it said.

Sirius kissed him again; I know. He was already growing hard, from all the months of being next to Remus without touching him. As he lowered his body onto Remus', he felt that the he, too, was having the same reaction.

"Are you going to read to me tonight?" asked Sirius.

Remus laughed and nodded. "Sure. If there's time when we're done."

Sirius smirked. And as he kissed him again, the kiss said, _I accept this_.

XXXXXXX

"There's only one chapter left," said Sirius, frowning as he flipped through the last batch of pages in the book.

"And it only took us six months to finish it," said Remus dryly. He unrolled a pair of socks and put them on his feet.

James and Peter were out, doing Marauderish things on the last night they would be at Hogwarts. Sirius had opted out, pressing a hand on the small of Remus' back, and Remus had declined as well. James looked skeptical, but Peter just accepted it like he accepted everything without any explanation, and left with James.

Things hadn't really changed with Remus, which was something Sirius had been nervous about since that first kiss. Remus continued to study for the NEWTs like a madman and only read to him on the weekends, when essays and homework weren't looming over his head. He wasn't clingy and he wasn't jealous. He laughed when a sixth-year girl asked Sirius to go to Hosgmeade and then laughed even harder when Sirius had no idea how to decline.

_ "She cornered me!" Sirius snapped. "They've never done that before."_

_"Done what?" Remus had asked._

_"Asked me."_

_"How'd it go about before?"_

_"I'd go up to them. Say, 'you, me, Hogsmeade, snogging.' They'd laugh and say okay, and then we'd go to Hogsmeade and snog. It was all very simple."_

_"I cannot believe anyone agreed to go out with you after saying that."_

_"It's my charm." Sirius grinned broadly._

_"Well, you agreed to go with her, so now you'll have to go."_

_"You don't care? You're supposed to get jealous and flounce off and leave me all confused over what I've done. At least, that's how I hear it's supposed to go."_

_"I'm not a girl, you shit," said Remus._

_"Ah! Remus said shit! God, I'm a bad influence."_

_"I won't care if you go. I really rather find it amusing. I won't even follow you around."_

_"What d'I do if she wants to snog me?"_

_Remus laughed loudly, tears springing at his eyes. "I cannot believe you've never had this problem in the past."_

_"I've never been involved in the past. I don't know the rules."_

_"Are there_ rules, _Padfoot? You can figure it out for yourself. Let her down easily. Tell her that you like her company and think she's very pretty and very clever, but you're going to leave school and it wouldn't be fair to her to get involved with you, not when she'll be at school next year and you'll have your own house." _

Remus was so clever. Sirius smirked to himself at the memory of him saying those exact words to the sixth-year. It was all very foreign to him, turning down a girl for a snog and a second date, but he didn't mind. He wondered what kind of gossip was said during his year of no girlfriends. Someone must have talked. Sirius didn't really care; these were Hogwarts students and school was going to be left behind them. It didn't matter what anyone said, because they were never going to see any of them again.

"Are you going to read it or not?" asked Remus as he lay down on Sirius' bed.

"How come we never do this in your bed?"

"Yours is warmer."

"Mmmm," hummed Sirius.

"The first thing you have to buy when you move into your house is a bigger bed. I'll be glad to be rid of the single mattresses. You need one that can actually fit us."

"That'll be nice," said Sirius. "I suppose that means you'll actually move in, then?"

"I'm still considering it, but it's nice to know that you want me there. You know my parents, though. They'll want to see the house and where I'm living. You can explain to them why there's only one bedroom."

"There's an extra room ... we could set it up. Like a rooze."

Remus shook his head. "No. I don't want to lie to my parents. We'll see what happens. I'm still seventeen and you're only eighteen. Moving in together is rather a large responsibility and I don't know if either of us is mature enough to handle it."

"But you'll come over?"

"Oh, I'll come over a lot, but if we get tired of one another, I'll go home." Remus flicked his fingers against the cover of the book.

"D'you want me to read?"

"Yeah."

"Stop talking, then."

Remus closed his mouth and curled himself next Sirius who was sitting up and using the headboard as a backrest. Sirius read, his voice faltering when Remus began to run his hands across his stomach underneath his t-shirt. There was nothing like the feel of Remus' hands on his skin. He kept reading, trying to ignore the other boy, but it was almost impossible when Remus' fingers undid the drawstring of his pajama bottoms and slipped under the elastic, gripping his half-hard erection.

There was only one page left of the book before _the end_ and Sirius raced to finish it.

"The end and they lived happily ever after, et cetera."

Remus' hand stopped moving. He sat up and looked at Sirius.

"That's not how it ends."

"How d'you know?"

"Because I've read that book before."

"Oh, right. Well, perhaps they _do_ live happily ever after."

"Maybe they don't."

"Maybe it's sort-of happily ever after, then."

"It's not."

"Oh, don't be a killjoy, Moony. And put your hand back."

Sirius didn't wait for Remus to make the move; he curled his hand around the back of Remus' neck and pulled him forward, meeting his mouth halfway and kissing him. Remus pushed against Sirius until he was on his back, the werewolf on top of him, their bodies pressed together. Remus' mouth was against his neck, Sirius' hand snaking its way into Remus' pajamas.

"Wait," said Sirius, pushing against Remus until the boy looked at his face, "that sort-of happily ever after bollocks – it's not complete shit, is it?"

Remus shook his head. "Not complete shit, no," he answered, and went back to kissing Sirius.

Well, that answered that, then. Perhaps things weren't perfect – they _were_ two boys after all, barely even men, but they were going to feel their way through life, through growing up, together. And even if happily ever after didn't last forever, if it even lasted for a day, that would be good enough for Sirius. For now.

XXXXXXX

**End.**

XXXXXXX


End file.
